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By
NICK ZEGARAC
After losing the part of
Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, Warner
Brother's reigning diva, Bette Davis was given a
glossy and sumptuously mounted historical epic of
her own. With Michael Curtiz's period melodrama
"The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939),
Warner Bros. proved that they could carry off a
grand-styled epic in the same vein as rival studio
MGM. No expense has been spared and every dollar
shows up on the screen. The film charts a
tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I (Bette
Davis) and the ravenous fortune hunter turned
lover -- who might be King -- Robert Devereux
(Errol Flynn), the Earl of Essex. Devereux is the
hero du jour of the English people. After
decimating the Spanish armada at Cadiz, he returns
to England to woo the Queen. And although the
middle-aged Liz's honorable intentions are indeed
stirred to smoldering embers of passion by this
elegant rapscallion, she thwarts her own chances
at romance, seemingly as sacrifice for the good of
all England.
This film is an astoundingly stoic and cloistered
exercise in style triumphing over substance and
greatly buttressed by marvelous supporting
performances from Donald Crisp (Francis Bacon),
Olivia de Havilland (Penelope Gray) and Vincent
Price (Sir Walter Raleigh). If artistic liberties
have been taken in recanting this period in
history -- and believe me, they have -- it has all
been at the service of providing Bette Davis with
yet another opportunity to prove to the world what
a consummate actress she was. Shaving two inches
into her hairline to give the illusion of
baldness, Davis looks every bit the part of a
stoic monarch. But she and Flynn, like their clash
of wills on camera, were neither the best of
friends or the most ideally matched pairing in
cinema history. For once, the glycerin façade of
mutual attraction that Flynn usually projected on
screen is strangely absent in their troubled
romance. As the haughty and exclusive Elizabeth,
Davis excels. But her behind the scenes contempt
for Flynn's acting prowess is painfully obvious in
their on camera exchanges.
Warner's DVD is better than average, but a tad
disappointing for a Technicolor film of this
magnitude. Some fading and flickering of colors is
obvious during scene transitions. While blacks are
generally deep and velvety, whites are quite often
more pale blue than white. Flesh tones are
somewhat pasty. Many of the scenes have retained
their original vintage vibrancy. But the lack of
consistency in the element used in the transfer is
a disappointment from which the average DVD
consumer will become abundantly clear. The audio
has been very nicely cleaned up and is presented
at an adequate listening level.
In the final analysis, "The Private Lives of
Elizabeth and Essex" is much more of a Bette Davis
flick than an Errol Flynn swashbuckler -- though
he's given ample purpose to don tights and do
battle for the sake of queen and country. Yet, one
wonder why this film should also be chosen as part
of the Errol Flynn Signature Series box set, when
say, "Charge of the Light Brigade" -- a clear and
obvious Errol Flynn programmer -- is still nowhere
to be found on DVD. |
