King Henry VIII is obsessed with siring a male heir, and Queen Catherine of Aragon has not borne him one. He casts his eye on a rebellious and haughty girl just back from France named Anne Boleyn, who takes on the high stakes game of getting the king to marry her before she will sleep with him, though he is of course already married. Henry endangers his courtiers, his servants, his kingdom, and eventually Anne herself with his obsessions about power and accession. Burton and Bujold are both wonderful in the lead roles and get good support from the other performers in this 1969 adaptation of the Maxwell Anderson play. Sets and costumes are excellent, and the movie has more forward drive than many other historic dramas, although a lot of detail gets left behind. Watch for an uncredited Elizabeth Taylor in a brief cameo as a masked courtesan who interrupts Queen Catherine in her prayers.
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
