Becket - Movie Review

I've been on a history of the British monarchy kick, from Henry V to A Man for All Seasons to Chariots of Fire (hey, Prince of Wales). The royals have long been popular on the silver screen, and Becket is a pillar of the genre, despite numerous inaccuracies and a general spicing-up-of-facts goin' on.

Book-ended by scenes at the tomb of Thomas Becket (b. 1118, d. 1170), the rest of the film is a flashback to his life, from a wild youth, to a career as a statesman, and then his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Central to the drama is the bond between Becket and Henry II, to the point that the film is almost less a biopic than the story of a relationship. Peter O'Toole is at his best here, throwing himself into the dissolute, petulant king with gusto (a role he would reprise in 1968's The Lion in Winter). He nearly steals the show from Richard Burton's gentle, erudite Becket, but if O'Toole provides driving force of the narrative, it is Burton that channels it.

The Scarlet and the Black - Movie Review

Gregory Peck, Christopher Plummer, and John Gielgud all in one film? Yes, please.

I came across this 1981 made-for-TV movie during my NaNoWriMo research on WWII. Necessarily, I read about a number of fascinating resistance groups. There was Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Valkyrie Plot, Sophie and Hans Scholl and the White Rose, Corrie ten Boom (of The Hiding Place fame,) and, one of most fascinating, Hugh O'Flaherty, the Vatican Pimpernel.

The Scarlet and the Black is a dramatization - no, that's the wrong word - it's an account of Monsignor O'Flaherty's many adventures during the war. O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck) was an Irish priest, an excellent golfer, and a master of disguise. He saved over 6,500 people during the war, earning him the nickname of "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican." He even had his own personal Chauvelin to play arch-nemesis, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Herbert Kappler (Plummer), a callous war-criminal.