DVD Review: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex on Warner Home Video

This dismal bore is for Bette Davis completists only.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and EssexDidn’t anyone tell Errol Flynn he was no match for the mercurial Bette Davis? As Queen Elizabeth I, Davis plays a character 35 years older than she is, with shaved eyebrows and a chalky white face mask. Her performance is driven with neurotic energy (her fingers twitch and her eyes brim with larger-than-life calculation) and she literally munches on any prop at her disposal (upstaging everyone by popping grapes into her mouth during a scene of court intrigue). No doubt she read the script, which is a longwinded mishmash of royal-power-versus-earthy passions. As she recites the puerile dialogue about her role as queen, or buries her love for the Earl of Essex (Flynn) under haughty threats, Davis seizes every possible opportunity to make herself into a mad spectacle. Whenever Davis isn’t on-screen, and even when her performance frequently dips into embarrassing camp, Elizabeth and Essex is a paralyzing bore. Silly fops in costumes (including young Vincent Price) skulk around the hallways muttering reams of hoary dialogue and Olivia de Havilland vainly struggles to make an impression in a thin supporting role as punishment from Jack Warner for playing in Gone with the Wind. Studio director Michael Curtiz attempts his usual bold visual flourishes, but there’s only so much he can do with material that gives him nowhere to go but into intense close-ups of—who else?—Bette Davis! Flynn was no less a movie star, but nowhere near as vibrant an actor as his grand dame co-star. Up against her, he can’t rely on his usual boyishness. This completely unmoors him, reducing him to a pretty-boy stick figure that Davis toys with. (She gets more fun out of a more challenging opponent like Claude Rains in Now, Voyager and Deception.) The dreary plot follows Flynn’s Essex, whose military victories make him a hero to the people. His ambition rises, and he threatens to seize the throne from the “virgin” queen he secretly adores. But Davis writes him off as a threat. Indeed, she seems more concerned with the mirrors lining her boudoir, frightened by how old age is catching up with her. She promptly smashes the mirrors, and by the time Elizabeth and Essex reaches its final act, we have no doubt she’ll do the same to Flynn. He keeps his chin up as she promptly sends him to hell.

Image/Sound

Clearly spending less time on a lesser movie, Warner Bros. does mediocre restoration work on Elizabeth and Essex, with frequent blurs, shimmers, and pigments changing from shot to shot. The audio is evenly clean and clear for an old mono track.

Extras

A perfunctory featurette seems like a chore for the talking-head film historians, offering tasty behind-the-scenes gossip about the caustic relationship between Davis and Flynn (evident onscreen). Nanette Fabray talks about her minor role as a lady-in-waiting, offering bland PC comments about Davis’s helpfulness, Curtiz’s pedigree, and Flynn’s winning smile. Leonard Maltin’s “Warner Night at the Movies” includes a newsreel cluttered with fashion and fishing tips, a gauche musical short called “The Royal Rodeo,” a Chuck Jones cartoon called “Old Glory,” in which Porky Pig meets a frightening Uncle Sam who tours him through a jingoistic version of American history, and a theatrical trailer for Bette Davis’s Dark Victory, where her male playthings include Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan.

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Overall

This dismal bore is for Bette Davis completists only.

Score: 
 Cast: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, Vincent Price, Henry Stephenson  Director: Michael Curtiz  Screenwriter: Norman Reilly Raine, Aeneas MacKenzie  Distributor: Warner Home Video  Running Time: 106 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1939  Release Date: April 19, 2005  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Jeremiah Kipp

Jeremiah Kipp is a New York City based writer, producer and director with over ten years experience creating narrative and commercial films.

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