Boy, do I have to disagree with these reviewers. Bette screwed up big time! No one twitches around like that at 63, unless they are ill. Bette is not fidgetting, she is twitching so badly I can hardly hear her lines...unless I turn the TV so loud that my neighbors will have to wake-up and listen with me. As someone who happens to be 63 right now, and who can remember my mom at 68, very funny and calm, I have to say Bette may have researched Elizabeth, but forgot to research being her sixties. Typical for someone 31 to exaggerate what it will be like to grow old, she is twitching around that set as tho she's 99 and on crack. In your sixties, all that back and forth jerking would begin to hurt a lot. She'd be on something 16th century if she had done that to her neck, spine, and shoulders all day...belladonna or some weird wine...or something brought from someplace exotic...maybe some pot...I love the idea of Bette walking around with a pipe playing Elizabeth. Seriously, though, it's too bad she didn't go to Santa Monica or Arizona and watch some people in the sixties she could emulate. No one would ever be able to retire to play golf if they were so out-of-control at 63.
Errol Flynn is a disappointment (the only one of the old-time actors I don't like--I adore everyone from Robert Montgomery to Clark Gable to Cary Grant to Humphrey Bogart to the Barrymores to Tyrone Power to Franchot Tone to Gary Cooper to Fredric March, et al. The animosity between Flynn and Bette is apparent. No way this guy loves the queen enough to risk a relationship with such a black widow spider, who could lock him up indefinitely or behead him if she grew tired of his lack of seriousness or dedication. When I read about their dislike for one another, the film made sense. Before that, I could not believe Elizabeth even liked this man and kept waiting for her to behead him from the start. I wonder if a better actor might not have steadied Davis down...a Barrymore perhaps?
I much preferred Cate Blanchett in this role--maybe I'm just spoiled. But I do remember Glenda Jackson as well, and though she was more intense, her portrayal seemed much more accurate as well. Bette makes me feel like this movie is a product of the 1950s, when women were portrayed as silly breeders who were mere children waiting for a man to make them a woman and keep them in line or terrible things would happen...like they'd grow up to twitch all the time....
reply
share