Henry VIII and His Six Wives

I thought this film was brilliant. The acting was so splendid it brought out each of Henry's wives as an individual woman, with the exception of Anne Of Cleves who appeared only twice and had a grand total of around three lines. Anne Boleyn was excellently played by Charlotte Rampling, and we really can believe that she is innocent of no crimes when she is sent to the block. Another standout is the late Lynne Frederick as Catherine Howard, as we see her fear, after her arrest. Knowing she will follow Anne Boleyn. We inthis marriage feel for king henry, as he thought he had found his perfect loving wife in Catherine Howard. In all i would say that this film is a must see, although it is slighty inaccurate. It also exaggerates, making Anne Boleyn hide numerous bodily deformations, while actually all she had was an extra lump of nail on her left small finger. But still see it!

since i was 7 years old and we did this little project on Henry VIII at school, ive held a place for old Henry somewhere.

i find him and his life so interesting and thought this was brilliant. i espically liked anne bolyn who had such a strong character and catherine howard for her actual fear.

Henry treks through life and wives just looking for a son. Then his third wife Jane Seymour dies during childbirth of his son Edward. I think it would of been Henry VIII and his three wives if she hadnt died. Jane was his perfect match and soulmate and gave him the only thing he wanted in life.

You see Henry get larger by the wife with his famous weight gain. I read in his later days he had the get hauled to bed by ropes because he couldnt carry himself but we didnt get to see that in the film.

a fantastic film 10/10

This is a film adaptation of the six part BBC TV series. I've unfortunately never seen the series but I know it is highly regarded, much more than this film version. The reason for the inferiority of this version is obvious: the original material is very compressed.

It is naturally very difficult to compress a life so colourful, and containing so much complex political and abstruse religious manoeuvring as Henry's in a 2 hour film. Events rush by so much that it requires a good working knowledge of the life of Henry VIII to be able to follow them. For example Henry's relationship with Thomas More is barely established (it comes down to one 30 second conversation) before Thomas is executed. Later, we suddenly see rebels kneeling before Henry, for some under explained reason, who he immediately betrays (this is the Pilgrimage of Grace, when northerners rebelled against the king's abandonment of the Roman rite). Nor is the fall of Thomas Cromwell properly explored among many other lacunae. I wonder what the uninitiated would make of these things? Bewilderment I guess.

The compressed nature of the film gives rise to much obvious expositional dialogue. Henry baldly states things rather than us subtly getting to know his thoughts through his actions. This violates the basic rule of drama "show not tell".

Because of this the scenes of Henry's later life, when a lot of the political and religious turmoil had died down, come off better. There is simply less to explain to the audience and most of the famous historical people (Woolsey, More, Cromwell) were dead. So the personal drama can be explored more fully. The scenes with Katherine Howard are probably the highlight of the film, even if the actress rather over-eggs her final monologue. The scene with the king weeping is especially moving.

I'm not sure if I could recommend this to a complete novice in Tudor history, it would be too confusing. But for those studying Henry's reign of general history buffs, it is moderately interesting.

The recent BBC series The Tudors certainly had nothing on their productions a generation ago of Henry VIII And His Six Wives and Elizabeth R. Henry VIII certainly had his marital problems, but they weren't just his domestic concerns. Other heads rolled when this guy discarded a wife.

Most account of Henry VIII usually start with him trying to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon in the 1530s so he could begat himself an heir with another. In fact in the first episode which does cover 30+ years of his reign and a bit of Henry VII we meet the young and virile Prince Henry who takes as his bride, Catherine of Aragon intended for his late older brother Prince Arthur. England did in fact come close to having a real King Arthur.

To keep to the format of dealing with his reign wife by wife a lot of history gets crammed into that first episode. Always uppermost in Henry's mind was the previous century and the dynastic struggles with the Houses of Lancaster and York known popularly as the War of the Roses. He wanted and needed a male heir to secure the secession and everything else was subordinated to that.

Subordinate he did because when the Pope under pressure from the occupying Spanish Army in Rome of the Emperor Charles V who happened to be Catherine of Aragon's nephew, Henry just broke from Rome and founded the Anglican Church. No church was going to tell him what to do and mess up the chance of a peaceful succession.

Keith Michell is a wonderful Henry VIII both as a young man and later on as the fat tyrant he's come down in popular culture as. The wives are well suited to their parts with Frances Cuka (Catherine of Aragon), Charlotte Rampling{Anne Boleyn), Jane Asher{Jane Seymour}, Jenny Bos {Anne of Cleves), Lynne Fredericks{Catherine Howard), and Barbara Leigh-Hunt{Catherine Parr}.

Charlotte Rampling is tragic as the young ambitious Anne Boleyn from an even more ambitious family who won the king and then committed the horrible sin of having a girl baby. That baby grew up to be Queen Elizabeth, but her road to the throne was a rocky one also. Anne was essentially framed with an adultery charge in order to get rid of her.

Which leads me to the best of the episodes. Lynne Fredericks as wife five Catherine Howard was a wild child to say the least. No fool like an old fool who really thinks this one wouldn't be straying. With the succession secured by Edward the child of Jane Seymour, Henry just wanted a little frolic. But he was old and fat and Ms. Howard had needs. Which she fulfilled with just about any young male who was around.

Henry VIII's reign was full of ironies and this was one of the biggest ones. He had to frame Boleyn to get rid of her, but Catherine Howard needed no framing. He couldn't execute her fast enough once he found out.

Thomas Cromwell who arranged the Boleyn marriage and later the Anne of Cleves marriage has come down as a sinister and thoroughly unpleasant man. And he's played by a guy and played well by one who's done a lot of sinister and unpleasant people, Donald Pleasance. Look also for a good performance by Bernard Hepton as Thomas Cranmer the first Archbishop of Canterbury under the new Anglican leadership.

I've not seen the new Tudor series, but it will have to go some to beat this excellent mini-series from the BBC.

This was an attempt and condenscing a very long, 6 hour miniseries into 2 hours. They recast all except 2 of the actors, and glossed over most of the important parts of history. The miniseries was over-long, I'll grant you, but they didn't miss anything. This was... muddled.

There's no real rythm to this film, it's just fractures of Henry VIII's life as he's laying on his deathbed, but it all comes out disjointed and uneven. They didn't even cover Anne Boleyn's execution! I'm no Anne Boleyn fan, but even I'm wondering how they could skip that.

The only real shining star is Lynn Frederick as Catherine Howard. She's only got about 10 minutes of screentime (probably less) but she's on her game. Beautiful and young and foolish, she gives the first sympathetic and probably most realistic portrayal of Henry's 5th wife. She nearly stole the show, and would have if they'd given her more time.

Anne of Cleves was a sad attempt at comic relief and Katherine Parr was an afterthought. I would let this go, if the focus was really on Henry - but it wasn't really about him either. It was so disjointed and uneven that the final film makes very little sense. You have to know your Tudor history to even follow it, and even if you do, it's still a confusing film.