Showing posts with label Miss G. Jackson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miss G. Jackson. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2009

Queens for Today: Yes, They're Cousins

This is one of the movies that, having caught it on the Movie of the Week as a child and thought it wonderful, I've never had the nerve to watch since in case it doesn't measure up. With two ladies like this, though, and from what I remember a very fetching Timothy Dalton in a 16th-century nightshirt, I have a feeling it wouldn't let me down.

Jackson must have felt in the midst of a bit of a Tudor overdose in '71, having done both this and a TV series in full Elizabeth drag. The picture takes a fair amount of liberties with history, not least in bringing the two queens together for a fraught meeting that never, in fact, took place. Still, I think I prefer my memory of this to what I've seen of more recent versions of the Tudor/Stuart drama - Cate Blanchett is very effective in her Good Queen Bess outings, but the pictures are dreck, and of the current TV go at the era, the less said the better.

The problem with stories like this, of course, is that you know the end, and it's not happy. The pretty, foolish loser dies, and the calculating, cold-hearted winner gets old and bitter, even though she does end up with better dresses than almost anybody else in history. And really, that has to count for something, don't you think? Maybe someone should go ask Diana Ross...