Two years after "Captain Blood," which shot Errol Flynn to stardom, Laurence Olivier essayed his own sea hawk role in "Fire Over England."
Made at a time when citizens in Great Britain and America hoped to skirt another Great War and not repeat its attendance horrors, if "Fire Over England" was meant as a wakeup call to a possible invasion by National Socialist Germany it was prescient indeed. The British government's appeasement of Hitler--indeed, the annexation of Austria--would happen the next year. It's silly to think "Fire over England" was meant to raise fears of a modern invasion of England. Then, they believed Der Fuhrer was a rational leader capable of honest deals.
Laurence Olivier, considered the great stage actor of his day, often chews the scenery. Perhaps he hasn't learned to dial back his performances on film from trying to reach "the gods" in the theatre; or perhaps, like many another great stage actor, Michael Redgrave for instance in "The Lady Vanishes, he had disdain for movies and only did them for the money. But the young Olivier photographs well.
With him is Vivian Leigh. She comes off much better and is even lovelier than in "Gone With the Wind."
Flora Robson plays a perfect Queen Elizabeth and repeated the role in Flynn's "The Sea Hawk" later, when England had reason to fear German invasion.
"Fire Over England" is an Elizabethan espionage drama where Olivier pretends to be traitor to dig up dirt on the Armada. It's E. Phillips Openheim in Elizabethan dress. Further I won't go lest revealing spoilers. But Olivier's performance improves as he becomes a pseudo-traitor. He even tries a few of those eyelid tricks he mastered later.
The script needs work, and shows the problem of novelists working outside their discipline. Two well-regarded novelists of the era, A. E. W. Mason and Clemence Dane, are credited as working on the script. And they have an exchange where Olivier asks a woman what she's cooking. "It's called a potato." Olivier looks at it strangely and asks if it's edible. Lines like that may be hidden in a novel but they stand arrogantly out in a movie.
More primitive than Hollywood movies of the same time, it's made watchable by its stars. Oh, and did I mention Robert Newton and Raymond Massey appear in smaller roles? Newton is always worth watching, from more subtle times like this to his later days when he approached every role as if it were Long John Silver.
Made at a time when citizens in Great Britain and America hoped to skirt another Great War and not repeat its attendance horrors, if "Fire Over England" was meant as a wakeup call to a possible invasion by National Socialist Germany it was prescient indeed. The British government's appeasement of Hitler--indeed, the annexation of Austria--would happen the next year. It's silly to think "Fire over England" was meant to raise fears of a modern invasion of England. Then, they believed Der Fuhrer was a rational leader capable of honest deals.
Laurence Olivier, considered the great stage actor of his day, often chews the scenery. Perhaps he hasn't learned to dial back his performances on film from trying to reach "the gods" in the theatre; or perhaps, like many another great stage actor, Michael Redgrave for instance in "The Lady Vanishes, he had disdain for movies and only did them for the money. But the young Olivier photographs well.
With him is Vivian Leigh. She comes off much better and is even lovelier than in "Gone With the Wind."
Flora Robson plays a perfect Queen Elizabeth and repeated the role in Flynn's "The Sea Hawk" later, when England had reason to fear German invasion.
"Fire Over England" is an Elizabethan espionage drama where Olivier pretends to be traitor to dig up dirt on the Armada. It's E. Phillips Openheim in Elizabethan dress. Further I won't go lest revealing spoilers. But Olivier's performance improves as he becomes a pseudo-traitor. He even tries a few of those eyelid tricks he mastered later.
The script needs work, and shows the problem of novelists working outside their discipline. Two well-regarded novelists of the era, A. E. W. Mason and Clemence Dane, are credited as working on the script. And they have an exchange where Olivier asks a woman what she's cooking. "It's called a potato." Olivier looks at it strangely and asks if it's edible. Lines like that may be hidden in a novel but they stand arrogantly out in a movie.
More primitive than Hollywood movies of the same time, it's made watchable by its stars. Oh, and did I mention Robert Newton and Raymond Massey appear in smaller roles? Newton is always worth watching, from more subtle times like this to his later days when he approached every role as if it were Long John Silver.