Nice castles. Nice scenery. Pity about the phony accents, acting, writing, direction. The story of the wretched and unfortunate Mary is one ghastly never-ending muddle and mess, end to end. I never did manage to sort out the ramifications of her dealings with the Catholics and Protestants, the King of France, Darnley, Bothwell and Rizzio, not to mention her half-brother, and this screenplay is no help. It is talkative, and presumably this is why Mary and Elizabeth are presented as meeting not once but twice, but very little is made clearer by these silly, pointless, fictitious encounters.
The actors come across as puppets pulled around by strings, spouting unconvincing artificial dialogue. Vanessa is far too physically angular, and unsympathetic, to play Mary; Glenda looks unwell throughout. McGoohan seems unusually constipated. None of these characters, Darnley, Bothwell, and so on seem at all real, let alone royal. Anyone less likely to go mad than Nigel Davenport is difficult to imagine. This is not a good film. Five Oscar nominations ? Incredible. Trevor Howard wasn't too bad. All the other Tudor film histories are better than this one.
The actors come across as puppets pulled around by strings, spouting unconvincing artificial dialogue. Vanessa is far too physically angular, and unsympathetic, to play Mary; Glenda looks unwell throughout. McGoohan seems unusually constipated. None of these characters, Darnley, Bothwell, and so on seem at all real, let alone royal. Anyone less likely to go mad than Nigel Davenport is difficult to imagine. This is not a good film. Five Oscar nominations ? Incredible. Trevor Howard wasn't too bad. All the other Tudor film histories are better than this one.