The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex ***** (1939, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Nanette Fabray) – Classic Movie Review 3.584

The plush and exciting 1939 romantic historical film The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex is based on Maxwell Anderson’s play Elizabeth the Queen and stars a perfectly paired Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. 

Director Michael Curtiz’s plush and exciting 1939 biographical romantic historical adventure film The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex is based on Maxwell Anderson’s play Elizabeth the Queen and stars an ideally cast and perfectly paired Bette Davis and Errol Flynn.

There is also one of those great Warner Bros casts, headed by Olivia de Havilland as Lady Penelope Gray, Donald Crisp as Francis Bacon, Vincent Price as Sir Walter Raleigh, Alan Hale Sr as Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Henry Stephenson as Lord Burghley, James Stephenson as Sir Thomas Egerton, Henry Daniell as Sir Robert Cecil, and Leo G Carroll as Sir Edward Coke.

Producer Hal B Wallis ensures a marvellous production in colour, with Sol Polito’s gorgeous Technicolor cinematography Anton Grot’s great set designs, and Orry-Kelly’s costumes, all set to Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s thrilling, superlative score.

Look to it for guaranteed golden years old-style entertainment, but don’t look to it as a history lesson, of course, as Hollywood waves its make-believe fairy wand over British history as Queen Elizabeth I (Davis) falls for Flynn’s Earl of Essex, but then has to have him tried for treason when her love for him threatens to destroy her kingdom.

Davis sweeps all before her in a gloriously mannered performance that manages great radiance and conviction. Unsurprisingly, Flynn is clumsy and amateurish with speaking his dialogue’s blank verse, but he is very handsome, cheerful and dashing, and so otherwise just great.

Warner Bros’ glossy production (with those incredibly costly and beautiful Anton Grot sets) and star support make the most of Curtiz’s grand direction. Curtiz makes it all so very elaborate, imposing and impressive.

Norman Reilly Raine and Aeneas MacKenzie’s screenplay is based on Maxwell Anderson’s one-time popular play Elizabeth the Queen (1930) which starred the husband and wife acting team the Lunts, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, on Broadway.

Also in the cast are Nanette Fabray [Nanette Fabares] as Mistress Margaret Radcliffe, Robert Warwick as Lord Mountjoy, Ralph Forbes as Lord Knollys, John Sutton, Forrester Harvey, Doris Lloyd, Guy Bellis, I Stanford Jolley, Rosella Towne and Maris Wrixon.

Davis wanted Laurence Olivier as her co-star and Flynn wanted The Knight and the Lady as the movie’s title, but neither of them got their own way. The film was to have had the same name as Anderson’s play, but Flynn demanded his character was acknowledged in the title. Davis hated The Knight and the Lady, thinking it gave Flynn more importance, even though Warners bought the play for her and she thought it was ‘a woman’s story’.

In this she got her way when studio president Jack L Warner acquiesced in the change to The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Davis thought Flynn not up to the role and had a casual attitude to his work. But Warners refused to cast the relatively unknown Olivier. Years later Davis viewed the film with her friend de Havilland and admitted ‘I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Flynn was brilliant!’

Davis had the opposite of a casual attitude to her work and was an obsessive hard worker. She studied Elizabeth I’s life, worked to achieve a passable accent, and shaved her hairline for greater resemblance. Davis went on to re-create her Queen Elizabeth I characterisation in The Virgin Queen (1955), playing her as an old woman.

It was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Art Direction (Anton Grot), Best Cinematography (Color) (Sol Polito, W. Howard Greene), Music (Scoring) (Erich Wolfgang Korngold), Sound Recording (Nathan Levinson), and Special Effects (Byron Haskin, Nathan Levinson).

Bette Davis was expected to be Oscar nominated but she was nominated for Dark Victory instead.

It is Flynn and de Havilland’s fifth of nine films together and the second of his three with Davis.

It was expensive at $1,073,000 but Warner Bros made a profit of $550,000.

Olivia de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents and died on July 26, 2020, aged 104.

Nanette Fabray (1920–2018).

Nanette Fabray, born Nanette Ruby Fabares in San Diego on 27 October 1920, died on 22 February 2018, aged 97. The singer dancer comedienne had a long and great stage and TV career, but her one real claim to movie fame is the MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953).

The cast are Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth, Errol Flynn as Earl of Essex, Olivia de Havilland as Lady Penelope Gray, Donald Crisp as Francis Bacon, Alan Hale Sr as Earl of Tyrone, Vincent Price as Sir Walter Raleigh, Henry Stephenson as Lord Burghley, Henry Daniell as Sir Robert Cecil, James Stephenson as Sir Thomas Egerton, Nanette Fabray as Mistress Margaret Radcliffe, Ralph Forbes as Lord Knollys, Robert Warwick as Lord Mountjoy, Leo G Carroll as Sir Edward Coke, Guy Bellis as Lord Charles Howard, Forrester Harvey, Holmes Herbert as Majordomo, I Stanford Jolley as Spectator, John Sutton, Doris Lloyd, Guy Bellis, Rosella Towne and Maris Wrixon.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,584

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/