The Private Life of Henry VIII – 1933 | 97mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Director Alexander Korda and French cinematographer Georges Perinal’s production gave Britain it’s first big breakthrough into the American market, and the subsequent capital raised allowed Korda to finance the building of Denham Studios. Costing just £60,000 to produce, Vincent Korda’s film sets belied their budget due to the excellent photography of Perinal. The film also won an Academy Award for Charles Laughton‘s larger-than-life portrayal of the petulant King Henry VIII.

The film chronicles the private life of the roistering 16th-century monarch and his relationships with five of his six wives, Anne Boleyn (Merle Oberon), Jane Seymour (Wendy Barrie), Anne of Cleves (Elsa Lanchester), Katherine Howard (Binnie Barnes) and Catherine Parr (Everley Gregg). The typical stately pomp of English biographical drama is sprinkled with a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humour throughout. Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, is dispensed with by a prologue explaining that she was “too respectable to be included.”

The first spouse featured is the striving Anne Boleyn, who Henry marries but soon has beheaded after she fails to give birth to a male heir. His next wife, Jane Seymour, dies during childbirth. Henry next marries Anne of Cleves, whom he reluctantly beds uttering the words: “The things I’ve done for England” as he heads towards the bedchamber, Henry dislikes her, and later divorces. Henry next marries Katherine Howard, who commits adultery with Henry’s friend, Thomas Culpepper (Robert Donat), and is also beheaded. Finally, Henry is brought down to size with his final wife, the bothersome Catherine Parr.