This Portrayal of Elizabeth

What a twisted interpretation. Makes me wonder what you think of men.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

I don't know the director's intent. However, you should study a little bit about English history. This movie is a total fabrication except for the names of the people involved.

Errol Flynn is one year younger than Bette Davis, who is not given any make-up to make her look significantly older than she was. Errol is twenty-nine or thirty years old at the time of filming and Bette is thirty or thirty-one. The real Robert, Earl of Essex was in his mid-twenties when he arrived at court and Queen Elizabeth was in her fifties. She was probably already in menopause or peri-menopausal when they met. Whether or not there was anything romantic between them, not implausible, though unlikely, it was extremely improbably that he would provide her with an heir if they had married.


The Earl of Essex failed in his attack on Buckingham Palace and was arrested after his attempt. He never controlled it and that entire sequence is made up for the screen. Frankly, I see the way it is presented as a slur on the reputation of Queen Elizabeth and the movie offends me in this regard. However, I can take it as romantic fiction and just ignore the historical travesty. At least it is entertaining.

I think you are more right than you would guess at your suspicions of what the writer and director have done to the true history.

The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

I grew up loving Bette Davis and this movie was one I was anxious to see. But it was abysmal, start to finish. Flynn never seems to even like Davis. And she is twitching all over the place. I could not understand her speech in the beginning, she was so all over the place. So happy to know the Hollywood misogynists made it up. I wonder how much the Hayes code had to do with the storyline--non-marital affairs had to punish those involved--so behead him and make her crazy with grief and longing! Now I need to look up the real history and forget this atrocious fiction.