DAVID BIANCULLI

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THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX
June 4, 2012  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

 

Here’s another impressive movie from 1939, the year that may have been the most bountiful in cinema history. (Also released that year: The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton, and so many more. I rest my case.) In this historically fanciful account, adapted from the Maxwell Anderson play Elizabeth the Queen, Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth I, who engages in a complex romantic affair with the Earl of Essex – played by the dashing Errol Flynn. (Watch for Vincent Price as “stupid git” – to quote John Lennon – Sir Walter Raleigh.) It's followed at 10 p.m. ET by The Virgin Queen.

 
 
 
 
 
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