This 1982, 180-minute television remake of the original MGM feature, produced 30 years before, is the rare makeover of a classic that works quite well under its own steam. Anthony Andrews plays the disinherited knight who returns from the Third Crusades and is determined to raise the ransom to free a kidnapped King Richard (Julian Glover). With his bid rebuffed by his estranged father (Michael ...
The Slipper and the Rose is a grand musical adventure in the tradition of The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. This lavish production features Richard Chamberlain in a spirited retelling of the classic Cinderella fairy tale, and the Academy Award-nominated score is provided by the Oscar-winning song-writing duo the Sherman Brothers (Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, ...
This lush, perfectly cast 1969 drama concerns both a doomed, royal love affair and a pivotal moment in British history. Based on Maxwell Anderson's 1948 play, Anne of the Thousand Days concerns the mess that surrounded King Henry VIII's decision to rid himself of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas), and marry the young Anne Boleyn (Geneviève Bujold). Anglophiles know ...
"I foresee a glittering future for your daughter," the conspiratorial Duke of Northumberland insidiously whispers to the mother of Lady Jane Grey, the woman who would be England's queen, albeit for only nine days. The same could be said for Helena Bonham Carter, who, in her screen debut, carries this historical drama with aplomb. Jane, a principled and precocious 15-year-old (she reads Plato in ...
Cast a Giant Shadow is based on Ted Berkman's biography of Colonel Mickey Marcus, the American soldier who served as an adviser in the fight to establish the state of Israel in 1948. Marcus (played by Kirk Douglas) must decide whether to settle into peacetime America or follow his more natural, combative instincts abroad--a dilemma symbolized by a love triangle involving wife Angie ...
Sarah (a teenage Jennifer Connelly) rehearses the role of a fairy-tale queen, performing for her stuffed animals. She is about to discover that the time has come to leave her childhood behind. In real life she has to baby-sit her brother and contend with parents who don't understand her at all. Her petulance leads her to call the goblins to take the baby away, but when they actually do, she ...
"Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: a comedy tonight!" Those words from the opening song pretty much describe the menu in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a frantic adaptation of the stage musical by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove. The wild story, set in ancient Rome, follows a slave named Pseudolus (Zero Mostel, snorting and gibbering) as he ...