It’s Film Strip Friday!
The Sword & the Rose
Release Date July 23rd, 1953
Summary:
Mary Tudor struggles for
the right to marry for love, rather than political power, in an exciting
historical epic.
FUN FACTS:
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a 1952
live action Disney version of the Robin Hood legend made in Technicolor and
filmed in Buckinghamshire, England. It was written by Lawrence Edward Watkin
and directed by Ken Annakin. This is the second of Disney's complete
live-action films, after Treasure Island (1950) The Sword and the
Rose is a 1953 United States family and adventure film, produced by Perce
Pearce and Walt Disney and directed by Ken Annakin. The film features the story
of Mary Tudor, a younger sister of Henry VIII of England.
Based on the 1898 novel When Knighthood Was in Flower
by Charles Major, it was originally made into a motion picture in 1908 and
again in 1922. The 1953 Disney version was adapted for the screen by Lawrence
Edward Watkin. The film was shot at Denham Film Studios and was the third of
Disney's British productions after Treasure Island (1950) and The
Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952). In 1956, it was broadcast on
American television in two parts under the original book title.
This
is also Disney's third completed live-action film.
Plot
Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles
Brandon. She convinces her brother King Henry VIII to make him his Captain of
the Guard. Meanwhile, Henry is determined to marry her off to the aging King Louis
XII of France as part of a peace agreement. Mary's longtime suitor the Duke of
Buckingham takes a dislike to Charles as he is a commoner and the Duke wants
Mary for himself. However, troubled by his feelings for the princess, Brandon
resigns and decides to sail to the New World. Against the advice of her
lady-in-waiting Lady Margaret, Mary dresses up like a boy and follows Brandon
to Bristol. Henry's men find them and throw Brandon in the Tower of London.
King Henry agrees to spare his life if Mary will marry King Louis and tells her
that when Louis dies she is free to marry whoever she wants. Meanwhile, Mary
asks the Duke of Buckingham for help but he only pretends to help Brandon
escape from the Tower, really planning to have him killed while escaping. The
Duke thinks he is drowned in the Thames, but he survives.
Mary marries King Louis and encourages him to drink to
excess and be active so that his already deteriorating health worsens. His heir
Francis makes it clear that he will not return Mary to England after the king's
death, but keep her for himself. When she goes to him for help, the Duke of
Buckingham tells Lady Margaret that Brandon is dead and decides to go
"rescue" Mary himself. Lady Margaret discovers that Brandon is alive
and learning of the Duke's treachery they hurry back to France. Louis dies and
the Duke of Buckingham arrives in France to bring Mary back to England. He
tells her that Brandon is dead and tries to force her to marry him. Charles
arrives in time, rescues her and kills the Duke. Mary and Brandon are married
and remind Henry of his promise to let her pick her second husband. He forgives
them and makes Charles Duke of Suffolk.
Cast
- Mary
Tudor - Glynis Johns
- King
Henry VIII - James Robertson Justice
- Charles
Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk - Richard Todd
- Duke of
Buckingham - Michael Gough
- Lady
Margaret - Jane Barrett
- Sir Edwin
Caskoden - Peter Copley
- Lord
Chamberlain - Ernest Jay
- Louis XII
- Jean Mercure
- Cardinal
Wolsey - D. A. Clarke-Smith
- Dauphin
of France - Gérard Oury
- DeLongueville
- Fernand Fabre
- Antoine
Duprat - Gaston Richer
- Queen
Katherine - Rosalie Crutchley
- Earl of
Surrey - Bryan Coleman
- Princess
Claude - Helen Goss
Production
At the end of 1948, funds from Walt Disney Pictures
stranded in foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, exceeded $ 8.5
million. Walt Disney decided to create a studio in Britain, Walt Disney British
Films Ltd. or Walt Disney British Productions Ltd. in association with RKO
Pictures and started production of Treasure Island (1950). With the
success of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), Disney wanted to keep
the production team to make a second film; he chose The Sword and the Rose
inspired by the novel When Knighthood Was in Flower (1898) by Charles
Major. This team consisted of the director Ken Annakin, producer Douglas
Pierce, writer Lawrence Edward Watkin, and the artistic director Carmen Dillon.
At the beginning of production, Annakin and Dillon went
to Burbank, Disney Studios in order to develop the script and set the stage
with storyboards, a technique used by Annakin on production of Robin Hood
. During this step, each time a batch of storyboards was finished, it was
presented to Walt Disney who commented and brought his personal touch. Annakin
was granted great freedom with the dialogue.
Walt Disney came to oversee the production of the film in
the UK from June to September 1952. The team spent several months researching
period details to make the film more realistic. Working in pre-production had
helped reduce the need for natural settings in favor of studio sets designed by
Peter Ellenshaw. Ellenshaw painted sets for 62 different scenes in total.
According to Leonard Maltin, Ellenshaw's work was such that it is sometimes
impossible to tell where the painting ends and reality begins.
The film's budget exceeded that of Robin Hood and His
Merrie Men, but earned only $2.5 million. The film was serialized in the
show The Wonderful World of Disney.
Analysis
Leonard Maltin surmised that The Sword and the Rose
is historically equivalent to Pinocchio (1940) although it remains
primarily a dramatic entertainment featuring costumed actors. However, it was
greeted coolly in the UK mainly because of its historical approximations
despite reviews from The Times that said that Mary had "remarkably
alive moments" and James Robertson Justice's King Henry had "a royal
air". On the other side of the Atlantic in the United States the New
York Times reviewed the film as "a time consuming tangle of mild
satisfaction". Despite these criticisms, the team responsible for the film
was reassembled for another film Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue.
Peter Ellenshaw's work on set allowed him to get a
"lifetime contract" with the Disney studio. He moved to the United
States after the shooting of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).
Douglas Brode draws a parallel between The Sword and
the Rose and Lady and the Tramp (then in production) in which two
female characters of noble lineage are enamored of a poor male character, a
relationship similar to that of Zorro and Senorita Elena Torres Zorro.
Steven Watts sees The Sword and the Rose and Rob
Roy as showing the Disney studio's concern for individual liberty fighting
against powerful social structures and governments. He is joined in this
opinion by Douglas Brode. Brode sees the film and the ball scene, not as a
conservative, but as an incentive to "dance crazes" (as the twist)
for the American youth of the 1950s and 1960s. The ballroom dancing bears more
resemblance to a dance competition in the 1950s than to a minuet of
pre-Elizabethan England. Brode sees a form of rebel involvement. The proximity
of the dancers, and rhythms not resemble the flip is introduced to the court by
Mary Tudor near the rebellious teenager. Moreover, Henry VIII took advantage of
the proximity afforded by this dance to flirt with a young lady of his court.
Brode cites the reply of Mary to the older Catherine of Aragon who is shocked
by this dance: "Shall I not have what music and dances I like at my own
ball?". Brode said that two years later rock and roll would similarly
upset the American nation.
Historical inaccuracies
There are many historical inaccuracies in the film.
Charles Brandon was actually a childhood friend of King Henry and not a
newcomer to court as is depicted in the film; he had already received the title
of Viscount from Henry in 1513. Furthermore, the couple's aborted attempt to
sail to the New World never happened; indeed, this is much of an anachronism as
the earliest serious English attempts at North American colonization would only
occur under Queen Elizabeth I, some fifty year later. It was Brandon and not
the Duke of Buckingham who escorted Mary back to England after the death of
Louis. The Duke's involvement is purely fictitious and his wife Eleanor Percy
is eliminated entirely from the story. King Henry is portrayed as a middle aged
and corpulent figure, although at the time he was only 23. His wife Catherine
of Aragon is also shown as a brunette although she was blonde.
Game
An unrelated Amiga computer game has the same name.
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