The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Complete Set

Starring:Keith Michell, Annette Crosbie, Dorothy Tutin, Anne Stallybrass, Elvi Hale, Angela Pleasence, Rosalie Crutchley, Anthony Quayle, Geoffrey Lewis (II), Edward Atienza, Alberto Colzi, Peter Reeves, Ronald Adam, Robert Hartley, Bill Riley (II), Verina Greenlaw, Robert James, Valentine Palmer, Howard Goorney, Stephanie Lacey
Director: John Glenister, Naomi Capon
Studio: Bfs Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Description

Few television series have attracted as much critical and public acclaim as these six triumphant plays, now preserved on video. Written by six different authors, each play is a lavish and authentic dramatisation, produced with style and quality. Binding them together with his magnetic and dignified performance as the mighty monarch is Keith Michell--the definitive Henry VIII.

Customer Reviews:

People Actually Liked This?.......2007-04-22

Good God was this terrible. Just awful. The acting, the writing, even the LIGHTING was bad. I usually don't notice things like lighting, but the excessive shadows everywhere sort of made me take notice. The sets are virtually non-existent. All the walls are bare - they didn't even have the decency to hang up some tapestries. I only made it through Catherine and Anne but the actresses were WAY too old for their parts. Catherine looks at least 30 at the beginning when she is supposed to be 16. And the worst part was that this series was downright boring. I can live with all of the above so long as they tell a good story. The producers didn't even need to come up with a good story - they had one, right in front of them, and this is what they did with it.

Intelligent, unforgettable, unmatched.......2006-09-05

I saw this series as a child, and it profoundly influenced my life, making me an eager historian and costumer ever after. Just a year or so ago, my brother gave this series to me as a gift, and it is even better than I remembered it.

The reign of the Tudors followed the War of the Roses, a bloody, chaotic part of British history, characterized by civil war and royal asassinations. The two little princes in the Tower, murdered by order of Richard III, were Henry VIII's uncles. His father, Henry VII, ended the strife by defeating Richard III, and marrying the Yorkist heir, Elizabeth. Their union brought stability to England.

You have to keep these events in mind when watching this series, because they make Henry VIII's actions understandable. His seemingly monomaniacal need for a son was his effort to ensure that nothing like the War of the Roses would happen again.

This series is for the serious Tudor buff. It comes from the era of BBC productions that were richly intellectual, subtly acted and true to the original material. Also, looking at it again after so many years, I realize what a parade of first class British actors participated: Annette Crosbie, Dame Dorothy Tutin, Patrick ("Dr. Who") Troughton, Bernard Hepton, and even Mollie ("Are You Being Served") Sugden.

Keith Michell delivers a Henry VIII whom you can hate and yet sympathize with--very human, sometimes weak, sometimes funny. He is a scholar, musician, knight, statesman, victim, tyrant, penitent, cuckold, and philosopher, as events dictate. His Henry is very complex; and one of the pleasures of this production is that you find yourself watching to see which Henry is going to emerge. One can imagine that his wives and courtiers also walked on eggshells, not knowing which facet of his personality might turn itself in them at any given time.

Of the six episodes:

CATHERINE OF ARAGON: Though Catherine is my favorite of the wives, I don't think this is the best episode, because it has to cover over 25 years of history in a few hours. Annette Crosbie does a fine job of portraying the proud, honorable Catherine. She even resembles portraits of the amber-haired princess. This should really have been 2 episodes. What is there is excellent. What's missing is more of Catherine's large part in the govenment of the realm, a more thorough characterization of Wolsey, of Catherine's father Ferdinand's duplicity, and how both of them in their different ways helped undermine her relationship with Henry. It's a pity Catherine was short-changed in this series, because she's the most interesting of the wives--the only woman Henry VIII really feared, and the only one who could have taken his throne away from him, had she chosen.

ANNE BOLEYN: Dorothy Tutin does an excellent job of portraying the historical Anne--not the romance-novel heroine, but the bitch-siren-victim who comes through from contemporary documents and accounts. Without ignoring the ruthless side of her character, she is able to also show a sympathetic Anne as she realizes that her star is on the descendant, and that she is following in the footsteps of Catherine, her deposed predecessor. Anne's notorious rages and hysterical fits are brilliantly done by Ms. Tutin--the terror of a woman who realizes that she's caught in a trap of her own making.

JANE SEYMOUR: This is the episode that won an award. It is sensitively done. Very little is known about Jane Seymour, beyond the fact that she was basically a pawn for her powerful family, and that she bore Henry the son he longed for. However, Anne Stallybrass renders a deeply-felt portrait of the kind woman who made peace between Henry and his daugther Mary, and somehow left an unforgettable impression on Henry himself. In this episode, too, we get an interesting view of the cryptic character of Thomas Cromwell (as portrayed by Wolfe Morris) --an urbane, nervous little man with an unsettling habit of suddenly turning lethal.

ANNA OF CLEVES: So little is known about this wife that I can't justly complain over the liberties the script writer took with her story and character. I think this is the weakest of the series, because it tries too hard to turn Anna into a modern woman. It seems that they were inspired by "The Private Life of Henry VIII"--the wedding night scene owes some of its comedy to Elsa Lancaster and Charles Laughton. That said, it's thoroughly enjoyable. I also enjoy the final dinner scene between the happily to-be-divorced couple. In historical fact, once they were divorced, they became good friends. A nice sideline is Mollie Sugden's turn as Anna's maid Lotte. There are one or two scenes where you can see that Mrs. Slocom look on her face, and I quite long to hear her tell Henry to "Shut your cake hole!"

CATHERINE HOWARD: This was the sleeper for me. I'd fogotten how good Angela Pleasance was in the role of the teenaged girl who is made the pawn of the Howard family, and married to the aged Henry VIII. Her monologues are intensely felt and thrilling--reminiscent of her dad's account of first meeting Michael Meyers in "Halloween". Patrick Troughton as the hard-edged Duke of Norfolk is brilliant, too. And the broken-down Henry, thoroughly pathetic.

CATHERINE PARR: Henry finally acts his age, and marries a widow, the covertly Protestant Catherine Parr. She is portrayed by the classically beautiful Rosalie Crutchley, who is convincing as the stable, kind woman who brought Henry's family all together again, and won the love of his children. One of the best dialogues is at the very beginnng of this episode, between Henry, who is trying to ask Catherine to marry him, and Catherine, who is trying to dodge the question. It's so well-written and funny, that after 10 viewings, it still makes me laugh.

This is a long review, but the gist of it is this--somehow, get a hold of this monumental production, and watch it. You'll learn something, not the least of which is-- What makes great drama.

the best around.......2006-03-12

Keith Michell's Henry VIII bests all others hands down. Step by defiant step, he creates a Henry unsaved by his rich sadness. It's got to be the performance of a lifetime! Six episodes, six writers, a mini-play for each wife, the result is a towering theatrical experience. Almost imperceptibly, Catherine of Aragon's shadow drifts across the film, an unadorned presence, indicating the pungent intelligence behind the whole enterprise. English theatre alone makes magic like this - brilliant and intimate and addicting. This one ranks on a par with the BBC's Elizabeth R. They are brother and sister films in tone and mood. Keith Michell is just ferocious throughout, You can't imagine the pleasure. Don't miss it.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Complete Set (1971).......2005-10-30

Contrary to the outrageous prices that are listed on the "these sellers" list, this title may be purchased from www.pbs.org for only $55 (plus $7 s&h) for the entire set!!!!

An Excellent Production, But DVD Quality Is Sorely Lacking.......2005-08-07

"The Six Wives of Henry VIII" is the original BBC series of six 90 minute plays chronicling the reign and marriages of England's King Henry VIII. Each of the six plays or segments, "Katherine Aragon", "Anne Boleyn", "Jane Seymour", "Anne Of Cleves", "Catherine Howard" and "Catherine Parr," is written by a different author. The series was released to great popular and critical acclaim in 1971 and televised on PBS' Masterpiece Theater. This is a three-disc DVD boxed set, with two 90-minute teleplays per disc (one per spouse). Keith Michell is outstanding as the multiple-married monarch. From a boisterous, athletic, handsome Hal, at the time of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, (Annette Crosbie), the superb Michell, and make-up, transform the king before our eyes to a porcine, tyrannical, and sickly ruler. Although each drama is limited in scope due to time restrictions, the monarch's personal and political reasons for selecting and/or rejecting, (or beheading), his spouses are depicted to some extent.

"My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs." Thus Mark Twain describes our protagonist in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." As this series demonstrates, Henry was not quite the womanizer he is reputed to be. He was married to Katharine of Aragon for over twenty years and had just a few mistresses before this - unusual for a prince. He waited years to physically consummate his relationship with Anne Boleyn, and remained faithful to her until marriage.

Each of the actresses who play Henry's wives was able to find the core of her historical character, her queen, and lend the woman an air of dignity and individuality. Annette Crosbie is magnificent as Katherine of Aragon, the first wife. Her role is the largest as her relationship with Henry VIII was the longest. Dorothy Tutin is a most credible Anne Boleyn, but little time is spent on her very romantic courtship by the king. Most of Anne's story is focused on the role her marriage played in Henry's divorce and the split with the Catholic Church, which sets the stage for the English Reformation. Anne Stallybrass is Jane Seymour, who is extremely important in Tudor history because she is the only wife who gives Henry a male heir. He always said he loved Jane the best and was buried beside her. I wonder if she was so favored because she played such a small part in her husband's life, not only time-wise - she died from puerperal fever after only seventeen months of marriage - but because she was a sort of "homebody." After some minor political meddling, Jane was warned by the king to stay away from politics, and reminded of her predecessor's fate. She learned her lesson and no longer interfered in the monarch's affairs. Elvie Hale is Anne of Cleves, the most politically astute of Henry's wives, and certainly the one with the best survival skills. She was glad, ultimately, to be cast-off and allowed to keep her head. Catherine Howard, Henry's "blushing rose without a thorn," is played to the hilt by Angela Pleasence, and her's is a terribly tragic tale. And Rosalie Cruthley plays the part of the brilliant and intellectual Catherine Parr extremely well. She was fortunate to become aware of a plot against her before she met the same end as Queens Anne and Katherine. The supporting cast is also noteworthy, especially Bernard Hepton as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Wolfe Morris as Thomas Cromwell, and Verina Greenlaw as Princess Mary.

I think, overall, that this is an excellent production, although not perfect. There are some silly errors that could have been prevented with more attention to detail, like visible microphones. It is also evident the quality of technology we take for granted today was not available in the early 1970's. Thus, the DVDs are not very good. In fact, I would recommend that you purchase the VHS edition, if you have a DVD/VHS player. The DVD set is much more expensive and the options one usually expects with DVD, like the scene index, are not offered.
JANA

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