''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' is a 1933 British film directed and co-produced by

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Charles Laughton,

Robert Donat Friedrich Robert Donat (18 March 1905 – 9 June 1958) was an English actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's '' The 39 Steps'' (1935) and '' Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award f ...

Merle Oberon Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). After her success in ''The Scarle ...

and

Elsa Lanchester Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was a British-American actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.Obituary '' Variety'', 31 December 1986. Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the F ...

. It was written by

Lajos Bíró Lajos Bíró (; born Lajos Blau; 22 August 1880 – 9 September 1948) was a Hungarian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who wrote many films from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. Life He was born in Nagyvárad, Kingdom of Hunga ...

and

Arthur Wimperis Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more ...

for

London Film Productions London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included ''The Private Life o ...

, Korda's production company. The film, which focuses on the marriages of King Henry VIII of England, was a major international success, establishing Korda as a leading filmmaker and Laughton as a box-office star.

Plot

The film begins 20 years into King Henry VIII's reign. In May 1536, in the immediate aftermath of the execution of his second wife

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

, Henry marries

Jane Seymour Jane Seymour (c. 150824 October 1537) was List of English consorts, Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII of England from their Wives of Henry VIII, marriage on 30 May 1536 until her death the next year. She became queen followi ...

, who dies in childbirth 18 months later. He then weds a German princess,

Anne of Cleves Anne of Cleves (german: Anna von Kleve; 1515 – 16 July 1557) was Queen of England from 6 January to 12 July 1540 as the fourth wife of King Henry VIII. Not much is known about Anne before 1527, when she became betrothed to Francis, Duke o ...

. This marriage ends in divorce after Anne deliberately makes herself unattractive so that she may be free to marry her sweetheart. Henry next marries the beautiful and ambitious Lady

Katherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542), also spelled Katheryn Howard, was Queen of England from 1540 until 1542 as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn (the ...

. She has rejected love all of her life in favour of ambition, but after her marriage, she falls in love with Henry's handsome courtier

Thomas Culpeper Thomas Culpeper ( – 10 December 1541) was an English courtier and close friend of Henry VIII, and related to two of his queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He is known to have had many private meetings with Catherine after her mar ...

, who had attempted to woo her in the past. Their liaison is discovered by Henry's court and the two are executed. The weak and aging Henry consoles himself with a final marriage to

Catherine Parr Catherine Parr (sometimes alternatively spelled Katherine, Katheryn, Kateryn, or Katharine; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until ...

, who proves domineering. In the final scene, while Parr is no longer in the room, the king

breaks the fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

, saying "Six wives, and the best of them's the worst."

Cast

Production

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Charles Laughton and his wife

. Originally, the story was to focus solely on the marriage of King Henry VIII and his fourth wife

, but as the project grew, the story was modified to focus on five of Henry's six wives. Only the first wife,

Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...

, was omitted because those involved had no particular interest in her, describing her as a "respectable woman" in the film's first

intertitle In films, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (i.e., ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as "dialo ...

s. Korda chose to ignore the religious and political aspects of Henry's reign, as the film makes no mention of the break with Rome and instead focuses on Henry's relations with his wives.

Reception

Box office

''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' was a commercial success. It made

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

signed him for 16 films. It also advanced the careers of Charles Laughton,

and

(in her first major film role). Laughton would later reprise the same role in the 1953 film ''

Young Bess ''Young Bess'' is a 1953 Technicolor biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about the early life of Elizabeth I, from her turbulent childhood to the eve of her accession to the throne of England. It stars Jean Simmons as Elizabeth and Ste ...

'' opposite Jean Simmons as his daughter

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...

. The film was the 12th-most-successful of 1933 at the American box office. It premiered to record-breaking crowds at New York's

Radio City Music Hall Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...

and London's Leicester Square Theatre (now the

Odeon West End The Odeon Luxe West End is a two-screen cinema on the south side of Leicester Square, London. It has historically been used for smaller film premieres and hosting the annual BFI London Film Festival. The site is on an adjacent side of the squa ...

), where it ran for nine weeks from 27 October 1933. It earned rentals of £500,000 on its first release.

Awards

At the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

s, the film was the first foreign picture to win an Oscar ( Charles Laughton for Best Actor), and the first foreign

Best Picture This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

nominee. Laughton was voted best actor in a British film by readers of ''Film Weekly''.

Analysis

Historian Greg Walker has noted that Korda integrated references to contemporary political issues, as the film anachronistically refers to the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...

as Germany and portrays the empire as more united than it really was at the time. The frequent wars between Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infan ...

against

King Francis I Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...

of France are depicted as examples of

French–German enmity French–German (Franco-German) enmity (french: Rivalité franco-allemande, german: Deutsch–französische Erbfeindschaft) was the idea of unavoidably hostile relations and mutual revanchism between Germans (including Austrians) and French peop ...

, with Henry attempting to act as peacemaker. The film inaccurately portrays the French fighting Germans in the

Habsburg-Valois wars The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...

rather than the Spanish. In the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...

, the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

was widely considered in Britain to be excessively harsh toward Germany, and successive British governments attempted to promote revision of the Versailles treaty in Germany's favour while also guarding against Germany reclaiming European domination. The Locarno Treaties of 1925 were a British attempt to improve Franco-German relations, and evidence suggests that this policy was very popular with the British people. Henry's monologue warning that the French and Germans will destroy Europe because of their mutual hatred and declaring that it is his duty to save the peace may have been understood by a 1933 British audience as an allegory for the current British policy of leniency toward Germany. The film possibly refers to the 1932

World Disarmament Conference The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, generally known as the Geneva Conference or World Disarmament Conference, was an international conference of states held in Geneva, Switzerland, between February 1932 and November 1934 ...

and the current debate about rearmament when Henry is warned by Thomas Cromwell that spending on the navy will "cost us much money," to which he retorts that not to spend money on the navy will "cost us England." Korda disliked the Labour Party's call for disarmament, and Henry's message in the film may have been a rebuke to those who called for Britain to continue with disarmament and to those in the government who were cutting military spending in light of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. In the 1920s and 1930s, many in Britain bristled at Hollywood's domination of the film industry; by 1925, only 5% of the films shown in Britain were British. In 1932, Sir

Stephen Tallents Sir Stephen George Tallents (20 October 1884 – 11 September 1958) was a British civil servant and public relations expert. Biography Born in London, Tallents was educated at Harrow and Balliol. He began his career as a civil servant at the ...

called for "The Projection of England", warning that if the British film industry failed to tell its own stories that would define Britain, then Hollywood would do so. This sparked interest in the

Tudor era The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began with t ...

and an image of the period as a prosperous, happy time untroubled by class divisions and economic depressions. The character of

John Bull John Bull is a national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter- ...

was portrayed as uncultured but kind, boisterous and exuberant, all qualities perceived as typically British. His lack of sophistication hid a mind that was shrewd and cunning, also a reflection of British self-image at the time. Korda, a Hungarian immigrant who craved acceptance in Britain, may have ascribed much of John Bull's imagery and traits to Henry VIII in the film.

is excluded from the script because she was a "respectable woman," in the words of the introductory titles, but the exclusion may have occurred because the real-life Catherine stubbornly refused to allow Henry to marry Anne Boleyn, a fact that might have weakened the audience's identification with the king. The film also does not mention that Boleyn was convicted of false charges of

incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...

with her brother, who was also executed, a fact that might have pitted the audience against Henry. The film inaccurately depicts Henry marrying

on the same day as Boleyn was beheaded; in fact, Henry only obtained permission to remarry that day, marrying Seymour on 30 May 1536. The film's portrayal of Seymour as a vain, stupid, childlike woman contradicts some accounts that the real Seymour was an intelligent woman.

is inaccurately shown in love with another man before she marries Henry, and this is presented as her reason for wanting to end the marriage. The relationship is played for comic effect, but the real process of ending the marriage lasted several weeks rather than over the course of a single night as portrayed in the film. Anne's desire to remain in England is attributed to her love for Peynell in the film, but in reality, her motivation may have been to escape the tyrannical supervision of her stern brother, the Duke of Cleves. According to historical accounts,

Catherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542), also spelled Katheryn Howard, was Queen of England from 1540 until 1542 as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn (the se ...

was an immature teenager of limited intelligence who did not realize the grave risk involved with her adultery. However, the film portrays Howard as a mature, intelligent woman who knew the risks of adultery, an inaccuracy that may have been intended to elicit audience sympathy for Henry's decision to have her executed.

may also have been inaccurately portrayed; rather than a nagging tyrant, the real Parr was an intellectual with a strong interest in

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and a gentle demeanour who engaged Henry in intellectual discussions about religion in his final years.

Legacy

''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' is credited with creating the popular image of Henry VIII as a fat, lecherous glutton who eats turkey legs and tosses bones over his shoulder (although in the film, Henry eats an entire chicken). Historian

Alison Weir Alison Weir ( Matthews; born 1951) is a British author and public historian. She primarily writes about the history of English royal women and families, in the form of biographies that explore their historical setting. She has also written nu ...

has pointed out that this image is contradicted by primary sources, noting: "As a rule, Henry did not dine in the great halls of his palaces, and his table manners were highly refined, as was the code of etiquette followed at his court. He was in fact a most fastidious man, and—for his time—unusually obsessed with hygiene. As for his pursuit of the ladies, there is plenty of evidence, but most of it fragmentary, for Henry was also far more discreet and prudish than we have been led to believe. These are just superficial examples of how the truth about historical figures can become distorted."

Copyright status

As a result of overlapping changes in

British copyright law Under the law of United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject-matter. Copyright law is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the 1988 Act), as amended from time to time. A ...

, the film never fell into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

in the UK and its copyright is now due to expire at the end of 2026, 70 years after Alexander Korda's death. In countries that observe a 50-year term, such as Canada and Australia, the copyright expired at the end of 2006. In the United States, the film's original 1933 copyright registrationUS Copyright ''Catalogue of Copyright Entries'', 1933, Volume 6, No. 8, page 361 – 3 November 1933, #7757. was not renewed after the initial 28-year term, and the film thus fell into the public domain there. As a foreign film still in copyright in its country of origin, its American copyright was automatically restored in 1996 with a term of 95 years from release, meaning that the copyright will expire at the end of 2028.

Bibliography

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References

External links

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''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' review
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Old Movies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Private Life of Henry Viii 1933 films 1930s historical films 1930s biographical drama films British historical films British biographical drama films British epic films British black-and-white films Films about capital punishment Films set in Tudor England Films about Henry VIII Cultural depictions of the wives of Henry VIII Films set in London Films set in the 1530s Films set in the 1540s Films set in the 16th century Films shot at Denham Film Studios London Films films Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance Films produced by Alexander Korda Films directed by Alexander Korda Films about food and drink 1933 drama films Films shot at Imperial Studios, Elstree 1930s English-language films 1930s British films