Tudor Rose (film)

Tudor Rose
	Nova Pilbeam and John Mills
Directed by	Robert Stevenson
Produced by	Hubert Bath
Written by	Miles Malleson (dialogue) ; Robert Stevenson (screenplay)
Starring	Cedric Hardwicke; Nova Pilbeam
Music by	Hubert Bath (composer); Louis Levy ; (music director & additional music)
Cinematography	Mutz Greenbaum
Edited by	Terence Fisher
Distributed by	Gaumont British
Release date	1 September 1936;
Running time	78 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Tudor Rose (US title Nine Days a Queen) is a 1936 British film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Cedric Hardwicke and Nova Pilbeam.

The film is a dramatization of Lady Jane Grey's brief reign as the Queen of England. It opens with King Henry VIII on his deathbed stating the order of succession, and ends with Jane's beheading. It took some liberties with the history of the period, including a fictional Earl of Warwick playing a similar role to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland in real life (Dudley having held the title Earl of Warwick earlier in his career).

The title refers to the Tudor rose. The story of Lady Jane Grey was also the basis for the film Lady Jane (1986).

Cast

Cedric Hardwicke as the Earl of Warwick
Nova Pilbeam as Lady Jane Grey
John Mills as Lord Guilford Dudley
Felix Aylmer as Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
Leslie Perrins as Thomas Seymour
Frank Cellier as King Henry VIII
Desmond Tester as Edward VI
Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Mary Tudor
Martita Hunt as Lady Frances Brandon Grey, Lady Jane's mother
Miles Malleson as Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane's father
Sybil Thorndike as Ellen
John Laurie as John Knox
Roy Emerton as Squire
John Turnbull as Arundell

Reception

Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a negative review, noting that he had "seldom listened to more inchoate rubbish than in Tudor Rose". Withholding harsh criticism of the direction which he described as "smooth, competent, if rather banal", Greene lambasted the historicity of the characterizations of the figures depicted, the dialogue/writing, and the scenes. According to Greene, "[t]here is not a character, not an incident in which history has not been altered for the cheapest of reasons", and he concluded that historical drama had reached "the Dark Age of scholarship and civilization".[1]

The film was voted the second best British movie of 1936, after The Ghost Goes West, by readers of Film Weekly magazine. Nova Pilbeam won the magazine's Best Acting award, ahead of Robert Donat in the other film.[2]

gollark: Oh yes, true.

gollark: Plastic fake fish of some kind perhaps.

gollark: I am of course not responsible for any damage.

gollark: You could always use liquid fluorine.

gollark: Hydrogen is cheap.

References

Greene, Graham (8 May 1936). "Anne-Marie/Tudor Rose". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. pp. 73–74. ISBN 0192812866.)
"BEST FILM PERFORMANCE LAST YEAR". The Examiner. Launceston, Tasmania. 9 July 1937. p. 8 Edition: LATE NEWS EDITION and DAILY. Retrieved 4 March 2013 – via National Library of Australia.

External links

Tudor Rose on IMDb

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[1] Greene, Graham (8 May 1936). "Anne-Marie/Tudor Rose". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. pp. 73–74. ISBN 0192812866.)

[2] "BEST FILM PERFORMANCE LAST YEAR". The Examiner. Launceston, Tasmania. 9 July 1937. p. 8 Edition: LATE NEWS EDITION and DAILY. Retrieved 4 March 2013 – via National Library of Australia.