ELIZABETH AND ESSEX

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 77, 13 December 1940, Page 51

ELIZABETH AND ESSEX

(Warner Bros.)

OLLYWOOD’S experiments in English history are almost always irritating, if they are seen from the point of. view of the historian., On

the other hand, from the point of view of .the cinema fan, they are usually at least magnificent, and periodically stupendous. History, if it is nothing else for Hollywood, is always an excuse for a crowd scene or a period pageant, or a taffeta bustle, or something equally quaint and spectacular. : For those reasons readers will please go to see "Elizabeth and Essex" with a firm and fixed’ resolve to forget that prejudicial label: "Historical Film." No doubt it’ is based on_history.. There was an Elizabeth, There was an Essex. And that really is all that bears upon the matter under consideration: a film that contrives to be entertaining ° in spite of its pseudo-historical background, and interesting in spite of the clutter of male star-names around the woman. who makes it a one-woman picture. The. film is certainly Bette Davis from first to last. Her study of the royal hysteria is so good it does not matter that her make-up -is_ bad. The story covers the royal love of Essex. Essex (Errol Flynn) is young, handsome, impulsive, brave, in love with Elizabeth, and ambitious. Understanding his ambition and coveting the love of this man younger than herself, Elizabeth has to decide between the throne and the arms of Essex. She decides for the throne, but not before the plotting of her court and the blind

pride of both herself and Essex have created one intensity of situation after another. Essex comes home successful from a raid on Cadiz. Elizabeth rates him and insults him to curb his pride, Essex retires to the country. Elizabeth regrets him, and is glad when trouble in Ireland givés her an excuse to recall him to her assistance without offence to vanity. She pleads with him to stay by her side, but Essex is goaded by his rivals into accepting command of the army in Ireland. His letters to her are intercepted, and hers to him. He is left unsupported. Tyrone traps him, and he is forced to surrender. He returns, with his army not disbanded. Elizabeth finds that he would betray her love for his’ ambitions. He wants the throne of England. The Royal retaliation takes the form of a betrayal of Essex in his turn, and retribution for loving comes. to the woman when Essex refuses to renounce his ambition and goes unpardoned to the block. This is history through technicol-_ oured glasses. But forget the. history, | and you are left with Bette Davis doing a job of work as a dramatic artist so splendid that all the many faults in the picture are forgotten in the reality of the emotion she creates. Flynn is little more than a pretty boy, and even that little more is pleasantly surprising in ome whose choice for the part. was, in itself, an accurate indication of Hollywood’s inability to distinguish between such regal drama and the boy-meets-girl-romance which .we see so often in the twisted Hollywood mirror. The rest of the cast are even more innocuous. The direction is fairly good, but the speed of the film is patchy and as usual, at the end, there is that inevitable Hollywood over-emphasis that spends three or four precious minutes turning good art into the tinsel of sentimentality. Those are the faults. The virtues, mainly because one of them. is Bette Davis, are sufficient. compensation. "Elizabeth and Essex" is worth seeing. It is good-by accident, indeedbut still, good. o