Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Universal with the stars, this ticked all the boxes for me and I was looking forward to a real fun 90 minutes.
Sadly, this is a terrible clunker. The story is uninteresting, partly because it is too involved and needs to be laboriously explained along the way; many of the fights are worse than 60s TV; the Tower itself is well realized but other scenery is remarkably terrible. Glad to have rented rather than bought.
The story is hardly involved...though perhaps I say that from the standpoint of someone who knows the true history of Richard III.
Have you never seen Shakespeare's play?
Having said that - remember that the *real* Richard III did *not* murder his nephews, and he most certainly wasn't killed by the cowardly Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth!
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There's no evidence that he did or didn't murder his nephews.
shareI don't have much doubt that Richard III murdered his nephews. He had their claims to the throne invalidated, sent them to the Tower of London and had himself crowned king. After that Edward V and his brother were never seen again, and rumours were circulating that they had been murdered, rumours which Richard could have easily quashed by having his nephews seen in public. Other theories about their disappearance.
Also Richard III would have been well aware that leaving them alive, even locked in the tower, they represent the greatest threat to his rule. After all, Henry VI had been locked away in the tower after Edward IV usurped him, yet that didn't stop the Lancasters from invading and recrowning him.
I wondered if when the film was made the general public was just more aware of history. I could follow because of my reading of history and historical fiction - but I did think it jumped around a bit, at least for modern audiences.
shareSadly, this is a terrible clunker. The story is uninteresting, partly because it is too involved and needs to be laboriously explained along the way; many of the fights are worse than 60s TV; the Tower itself is well realized but other scenery is remarkably terrible.