Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

Anne of the Thousand Days is a British romantic film drama first released in 1969, directed by Charles Jarrott.  The film is based on a play by Maxwell Anderson and stars Richard Burton, Geneviève Bujold, Irene Papas, Anthony Quayle and John Colicos.  It has also been released under the title: Anne of a Thousand Days.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


England, 1525.  King Henry VIII is anxious to produce a male heir to secure the Tudor lineage but his queen, Katherine of Aragon, has passed child-bearing age and has borne him only a daughter and dead sons.  Anne, the 18-year-old daughter of the courtier Sir Thomas Boleyn, makes such an impression on Henry that he resolves to make her his mistress.  Seeing how the king used and abused her sister Mary, Anne defies Henry and refuses to bear his bastards.   She is further incensed when Cardinal Wolsey, acting on the king’s orders, breaks up her engagement to the man to whom she is betrothed, the son of the Earl of Northumberland.  Realising that Anne will only marry him if she is made queen, Henry decides to divorce Katherine.  Following Pope Clement VII’s refusal to grant an annulment, the king severs all ties with Rome and makes himself supreme head of the Church of England.  Now passionately in love with the king, Anne takes Katherine’s place and Henry is confident that he will soon have a male heir.  But once again fate is not kind to the king.  Anne’s firstborn is a girl.  Her next pregnancy ends in the stillbirth of a boy.  Convinced that his union to Anne is to be as cursed as his marriage with Katherine, Henry begins to look elsewhere for a royal consort.  His eyes alight on the young Jane Seymour.  Knowing what is to come, Anne becomes hostile towards the king and refuses to agree to a divorce.  Henry will not be beaten and instructs his minister, Thomas Cromwell, to prove that Anne has been unfaithful to him so that she may be charged with high treason.  As she mounts the scaffold, Anne faces death with equanimity.  She knows that, through her daughter Elizabeth, she will ultimately triumph over the monarch who loved her and loathed her with equal passion.

Hal B. Wallis’s lavish adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play Anne of the Thousand Days is an almost flawless historical drama that relates, with pomp, passion and poignancy, one of the best known episodes in British history.   A worthy companion to A Man for All Seasons (1966), which tells the story from the perspective of Thomas More, this film boasts excellent production values, an intelligent but humane screenplay and some remarkable performances.  Whilst the point-scoring pendants may quibble over one or two minor historical inaccuracies, the film has great educational value, as well as being a sublime piece of dramatic art.

Richard Burton was at the height of his powers in the mid to late sixties and, as England’s most notorious monarch, he gives what is arguably his finest screen performance.  Whilst too many productions are content to portray Henry VIII as a fickle tyrant, Burton offers a much more nuanced interpretation in which the king shows a gentler, more compassionate side.  Here, Henry’s rejection of Katherine of Aragon is not a callous whim but an agonising break up of a loving union necessitated by an understandable compulsion to preserve the hard-won Tudor dynasty.  Likewise, the failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn is an agonising ordeal in which the king is assailed by guilt and self-recrimination.  Burton’s Henry is not the familiar Bluebeard-like monster, but a passionate multi-faceted man who is relentlessly tormented by his human failings and monarchic duties.

What is so great about this film is that, even though Richard Burton gives such a powerful performance, he does not steal the limelight from his co-star, the stunning French actress Geneviève Bujold.  In her first English-language film, Bujold gives the performance of her career, playing Anne Boleyn with just as much fire, charima and humanity as Burton brings to his portrayal of King Henry.  The chemistry between these two great actors is such that the intensity of their characters’ feelings shoot through the spectator, like sizzling bolts of electricity arcing from the screen. The riveting Burton-Bujold partnership is superbly complemented by supporting players Anthony Quayle, Michael Hordern and Irene Papas.

Anne of the Thousand Days may not have had the mindblowing budget of comparable Hollywood historical dramas, yet it provides an accurate portrayal of the Tudor era through its meticulous set and costume design (the latter of which won the film its only Oscar, one of ten for which it was nominated in 1970).  The ample runtime gives the film an epic feel but at no point does it feel overlong or padded.  The performances are engrossing and the majesty of the photography is matched by the exquisite charm of Georges Delerue’s score.   Of course everyone knows the story of Anne Boleyn, but this film brings such depth and poignancy to the familiar saga that you will look on the star-crossed protagonists in a new light and regard the short-lived union of Anne and Henry as nothing less than the cruellest of Greek tragedies.

© Chris Alderton 2010

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