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Tudor Rose (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Tudor Rose' (US title 'Nine Days a Queen') is a 1936 British film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Cedric Hardwicke and Nova Pilbeam.
The film is a dramatization of Lady Jane Grey's brief reign as the Queen of England. It opens with King Henry VIII on his deathbed stating the order of succession, and ends with Jane's beheading. It took some liberties with the history of the period, including a fictional Earl of Warwick playing a similar role to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland in real life (Dudley having held the title Earl of Warwick earlier in his career).
The title refers to the Tudor rose. The story of Lady Jane Grey was also the basis for the film 'Lady Jane' (1986).
Cast
*Cedric Hardwicke as The Earl of Warwick
*Nova Pilbeam as Lady Jane Grey
*John Mills as Lord Guilford Dudley
*Felix Aylmer as Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
*Leslie Perrins as Thomas Seymour
*Frank Cellier as King Henry VIII
*Desmond Tester as Edward VI
*Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Mary Tudor
*Martita Hunt as Lady Frances Brandon Grey, Lady Jane's mother
*Miles Malleson as Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane's father
*Sybil Thorndike as Ellen
*John Laurie as John Knox
*Roy Emerton as Squire
*John Turnbull as Arundell
Reception
Writing for 'The Spectator' in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a negative review, noting that he had "seldom listened to more inchoate rubbish than in 'Tudor Rose'". Withholding harsh criticism of the direction which he described as "smooth, competent, if rather banal", Greene lambasted the historicity of the characterizations of the figures depicted, the dialogue/writing, and the scenes. According to Greene, "[t]here is not a character, not an incident in which history has not been altered for the cheapest of reasons", and he concluded that historical drama had reached "the Dark Age of scholarship and civilization". (reprinted in: )
The film was voted the second best British movie of 1936, after 'The Ghost Goes West', by readers of 'Film Weekly' magazine. Nova Pilbeam won the magazine's Best Acting award, ahead of Robert Donat in the other film.
References
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