Evidently, I have a weakness for movies that include English royals among the characters. Becket, The King's Speech, The Lion in Winter, The Madness of King George, The Queen.... It hardly matters whether the royals appear respectable or despicable; I enjoy them either way. The one slight exception that comes to mind is Elizabeth, which I might like better if I saw it again today.
As you've probably guessed, this one focuses on the many marital/romantic connections of the king (Charles Laughton, who won an Oscar for it). Not all of them, tho: It begins on the day of the execution of second wife Anne Boleyn (Merle Oberon), almost as if Anne of the Thousand Days were a prequel, and ends somewhere in his sixth marriage, to Catherine Parr (Evelyn Gregg), covering a period of 7 to 11 years. His only explicitly depicted extramarital love interest is lady-in-waiting Catherine Howard (Binnie Barnes), who becomes his fifth wife.
Don't read too much into my "explicit." While it's true that a 1933 British feature could get away with more than a slightly later American feature, this one is still pretty cagey about sex. At least it allows the word "adultery" and indicates that Henry was a hypocrite on the matter.
You may be wondering why I haven't mentioned the third and fourth wives yet. Well, they didn't last long. Jane Seymour (Wendy Barrie) died producing Henry's first viable son and, no doubt, most emotionally complicated day. Anne of Cleves (Elsa Lanchester, actual wife of Laughton at the time) talks him into an immediate divorce, albeit showing up later in his life in a different capacity. And first wife Catherine of Aragon makes no appearance.
No, Catherine Howard gets easily the most screen time, even before Henry takes a shine to her. The man with the next most screen time is Thomas Culpeper (Robert Donat), her other suitor. It does not reflect well on her that she sought power first and rejected his love until it became forbidden. Of course, we can't expect good mores from someone who wants to marry Henry VIII of all people.
Compared with Richard Burton's Henry VIII in AotTD, Laughton's seems less of an intimidating semi-monster. Compared with Robert Shaw's in A Man for All Seasons, he seems less charismatic. Basically, he borders on an amoral clown trying to look majestic. I think that's fair enough for our common perception.
This is not to say that we can't sympathize with Laughton's Henry a bit. Each wife presents a new obstacle for him, and at times he's ready to forswear marriage; only a sense of kingly obligation to secure more heirs gets him back in the game. He also feels obligated to struggle to keep a more positive image than the reality, in more ways than one. Truly, I've never found the guy more relatable.
I suspect that the dialog helps. The screenplay didn't get an award or nomination, but it has some choice phrases. If only it had omitted the anachronistic reference to Bluebeard...
The DVD I rented didn't include any extras. Perhaps I should be glad to have gotten such a good copy, considering all the bad ones after the copyright lapsed. TPLoH8 deserves to be seen to this day, by anyone who wants a not-so-dour take on the historical figure.
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