The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933)

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.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)

I was a bit wary of watching an old Hollywood movie set in China. Fortunately, the serious subject matter and basis on a true story help keep it from being all that politically incorrect. Yes, Robert Donat has his last role as one of the most prominent "Chinese" characters, and Curd Jürgens looks no more half-Chinese than John Carradine from "Kung Fu," but they don't ham it up. I'm more offended at the casting of Ingrid Bergman, who, for all her good acting, has way too thick an accent to pass for a pure Englishwoman and reportedly looks nothing like the real Gladys Aylward.

Aylward's story itself threatens to offend viewers. I mean, this lone Brit with little preparation -- a missionary, no less -- makes a big, apparently highly positive difference for hundreds of Chinese in the '30s. It's not clear that she converts many, but she certainly sets an example with values not common to the area at the time. By gaining favor with, among others, the local official called the Mandarin (partly with her lack of allegiances before going native, like Lawrence of Arabia, and partly by inadvertently amusing with exoticism), she brings about a reduction in foot binding, an improvement of prisons, and other reforms. In the end, she saves many young lives in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Yeah, not a whole lot that concerns the quirkily named inn. If you can accept such a tale, as I did, you'll probably find it touching.