CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon - The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

“In 1939, I secured my career and my stardom forever. I made five pictures in twelve months and every one of them was successful.” Bette Davis was referring to the string of movies she made in rapid succession, beginning with The Sisters in 1938 and followed by four more the next year – Dark Victory, Juarez, The Old Maid and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. If 1939 was a watershed year for Hollywood, it was, too, for the actress who was about to begin her reign as America’s top film actress.

Of Human Bondage (1934)

Bette Davis spent most of the first half of the 1930s making her way through a series of mostly dreary film assignments, first for Universal and then for Warner Bros. Her startling performance in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) changed the course of her career. She won her first Best Actress Oscar for a downbeat role in Dangerous (1935), and her second for her turn as a headstrong Southern belle in Jezebel (1938).

Maxwell Anderson’s Elizabeth, the Queen, a historical drama written in blank verse a la Shakespeare, opened on Broadway in 1930. It starred Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt and ran for 147 performances. The production and Fontanne’s portrayal of Elizabeth I were legendary. Eight years after the play closed, an adaptation would make its way to the screen.

Based on events of Elizabeth’s late years, the story follows her relationship with the much younger Earl of Essex. After a victory against Spain at Cadiz, Essex returns to England a hero. Ambitious and overconfident, he is a favorite of the queen. However, the two are often at odds; she favors measured statesmanship and he is for bold action; both have a taste for power. Not surprisingly, the Earl is unpopular with the queen’s advisors who maneuver him into leading an ill-fated intervention in Ireland. Essex fails and returns to England in disgrace. Unable to bear ignominy, he attempts to raise a rebellion against the queen. This ends badly for Essex. 



Elizabeth I by Hans Holbein

When Bette Davis learned that producer Hal Wallis bought Anderson’s play for her, she was elated. “Elizabeth was my tankard of tea,” she later recalled. Familiar with the Broadway production and Fontanne’s performance, she saw in the part an exciting opportunity as well as a real challenge. Davis was only 31 at the time and she would be portraying Elizabeth in her 60s. Additionally, the script primarily consisted of complex blank verse dialogue. As was typical of her, Davis threw herself into the project completely. She began extensive research on the Elizabethan period and monarchy, and she was happily surprised when she saw in Holbein's portraits of Elizabeth a resemblance between herself and the queen.

Davis campaigned for Laurence Olivier to be cast in the role of Essex. “He was perfect for the part…he was arrogant, beautiful, virile and talented,” she remembered years afterward. Olivier was in between Wuthering Heights (1939) and Rebecca (1940) at the time, but Jack Warner wasn’t enthusiastic. Olivier was not yet a star in the U.S. (though he was on the very brink) and Warner felt the film required a box office powerhouse equal to Davis. The adaptation of Anderson’s play was a big picture for Warners in 1939 and Jack Warner wanted Errol Flynn, the studio’s hottest leading man, for Essex. Flynn had completed The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Dawn Patrol and Dodge City all within the past year and was at the height of his popularity. Davis was not convinced. She did not think Flynn had the experience to cope with blank verse or the professionalism to work at it. But Warner prevailed; Flynn it would be. Davis was deeply disappointed. Perhaps the fact that Flynn was being paid twice as much as she amplified her disappointment…

Bette Davis and Michael Curtiz on the set

Warner Bros. veteran Michael Curtiz was tapped to direct. Though Curtiz and Flynn collaborated on several popular films, the dynamic between them was not ideal. Curtiz viewed  Flynn as little more than a blank slate, referring to the actor as “my beautiful puppet.” On the other hand, Davis put up with nothing from Curtiz on this set, she would not  forgive or forget his dismissive treatment of her before she was a star.

The supporting cast was steeped in solid character actors: Donald Crisp, Henry Daniell, Vincent Price, Henry Stephenson, Leo G. Carroll, Alan Hale and James Stephenson. Olivia de Havilland appeared intermittently and young Nanette Fabray (Fabares) made an affecting screen debut as ladies in waiting.

Though Davis anticipated the film and her role as “a dream come true,” the production did not go smoothly.

It might seem logical that in making a film of a famed stage drama, the name of the play would remain intact. But Flynn did not like it that his character was not mentioned in the title and insisted on a change. The Knight and the Lady was proposed. For Davis, whose character was the centerpiece of the drama, that was unacceptable. The Lady and the Knight was offered as an option. No one liked this, including Davis. The success of Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), an Oscar-winner for Charles Laughton, inspired the film’s eventual title.

Bette Davis and Errol Flynn

When Olivia de Havilland arrived to begin work, she was still doing retakes for Gone With the Wind. She claimed that she wasn’t ready to start, she couldn’t play two characters at the same time. Jack Warner convinced her, at least to some extent, that she could.

Davis insisted on authentic costume design, but Curtiz thought that authentic costumes would be “too much for the camera” and wanted them scaled down. According to Davis, designer Orry-Kelly made two complete sets of Elizabeth’s costumes – the first conforming to Curtiz’s edict, the second historically accurate. Davis tested in the first set and played her role in the second. “Tricky is the determined female,” she later mused.

Makeup artist Perc Westmore worked closely with Bette Davis to achieve Elizabeth’s age and appearance. He remarked on her dedication to the part but said that he had to walk a fine line to create what Davis wanted while not exceeding what Jack Warner would tolerate.

As it turned out, Davis’s concerns about Errol Flynn were well-founded. Notes in the film’s production reports mention the actor’s difficulty with the dialogue. Flynn apparently protested, “I can’t remember lines like that,” and screenwriters Aeneas MacKenzie and Norman Reilly Raine simplified his lines by rewriting them out of verse.

In one famous scene (and infamous incident), Davis gave Flynn a hearty slap across the face with her heavily jeweled hand. Flynn called it a “right hook” and reportedly never forgave her for it. Davis did not seem to think she’d done anything out of character…

Orry-Kelly, Perc Westmore, art director Anton Grot and cinematographer/d.p. Sol Polito, all masters of their respective cinematic arts, worked inspired magic. Polito was especially valuable on the production for his wizardry with Technicolor.

Anton Grot’s lavish sets are an eyeful. At times Elizabeth seems to exist as if within an enormous chest of jewels, so surrounded is she by plush shades of amethyst, turquoise, ruby, emerald and gold. And Grot creates an evocative mood...in vaulted candle-lit chambers, a massive fireplace blazes and flickering shadows leap across dim walls.

Art Director Anton Grot

Anton Grot dominated art direction at Warner Bros. from the late '20s through the 1940s and is often credited for the realism of "the Warner Bros. look" of the 1930s. He was known for his interest in the expressive qualities of light on film, and his work was influenced by European modernism. Nominated for five competitive Oscars, Grot was given a special technical achievement award in 1940 for his design of a "water ripple and wave illusion machine." His films include Little Caesar, Anthony Adverse, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Captain Blood, and Mildred Pierce. The UCLA Library houses a collection of Grot's original sketches (see below and click here to see more).

Anton Grot's sketch of the court of Elizabeth I

Bette Davis in an intriguing performance is the finest of the film's fine qualities. In his Great Stars monograph on the actress, David Thomson wrote of Davis that she "often moves like a beast fearful of being leashed." As Elizabeth, her erratic gestures and movements, her voice and her eyes are alive with frustration and exasperation, insecurity and rage. At times she seems to prowl the queen's quarters like a caged cat. Davis captures the spirit of a weary but wily and indomitable monarch, a woman trapped in the power she has fought hard to hold.

While I don't think Flynn was up to this script, it isn't hard to imagine an aging queen (or any woman) falling victim to his many obvious charms. It's true that Olivier's brooding charisma along with his mastery of Shakespeare might've made for a compelling Essex - and I'm very sure he would have held his own with Bette Davis. But many among the film's cast and technical crew were veterans of Curtiz/Flynn action adventures and that may have something to do with why, overall, Elizabeth and Essex plays as a slightly off-balance marriage between historical drama and swashbuckling epic.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex was a moneymaker for Warner Bros. Variety reported, “Bette Davis dominates the production at every turn…” and pointed out it was the first picture to be released using fast new Technicolor methods. The picture's "slow spots" were discounted as minor shortcomings.

Bette Davis and Errol Flynn

Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times, voicing a complaint common among critics that Flynn was a weak Essex, observed that Davis delivered “a strong, resolute, glamour-skimping characterization against which Mr. Flynn’s Essex has about as much chance as a beanshooter against a tank.”

Bette Davis needed a rest at this point. “I weighed 80 pounds when I discarded Bess’s ruff and hoop for the last time. I was really exhausted. I knew I must take a holiday and recharge the battery…”

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex received five Academy Award nominations - for art direction, color cinematography, special effects, music score and sound recording. Davis was nominated for Dark Victory instead.

Nominated for art direction, cinematography, effects, score and sound

Forty years after the film’s release, the actress told a biographer, “I have very mixed emotions when I see it.” She questioned whether she had, young as she was at the time, enough life experience to draw upon for the role. And she admitted that she had “secretly” been a bit unsure about playing Elizabeth.

In her 1962 autobiography, A Lonely Life, Bette Davis recalled a moment that stood out in her memory of the production. One day Charles Laughton visited the set. It was her first meeting with an actor she admired very much.

“Hi, Pop,” she greeted him, playfully referring to his role as Henry VIII.

“Ah, it’s my favorite daughter,” he replied.

As they talked, Bette mentioned that perhaps she had a lot of nerve to be trying to play Elizabeth. Laughton’s response was something she never forgot.

“Never stop daring to hang yourself, Bette,” he told her.

~

Click here for a full list of links to blogs participating in CMBA's "Classic Movies of 1939" blogathon.

The Classic Movie Blog Association honored this post with the 2011 CiMBA award for Best Film Review (Drama)

Sources:
The Lonely Life (1962) by Bette Davis, The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography (2006) by Charlotte Chandler, Dark Victory : The Life of Bette Davis (2007) by Ed Sikov, Bette Davis (2009) by David Thomson (Great Stars series)

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Posted by: Tukiyooo CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon - The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex Updated at : 6:45 AM

Tuesday, May 17, 2011