Sixty Glorious Years (1938)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Herbert Wilcox

Writers:

Miles Malleson (writer)
Sir Robert Vansittart (dialogue)

Release Date:

2 August 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

A picture to storm your heart and sweep your senses . . . Drama behind palace doors . . . Drama on the battlefield . . . A world of conflict and emotion, brought to you in a picture that for sheer beauty and magnitude stands alone! . . . Don't Miss It!

Plot Keywords:

Sequel

Cast

Anna Neagle	...	Queen Victoria
Anton Walbrook	...	Prince Albert
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Duke of Wellington
Walter Rilla	...	Prince Ernst
Charles Carson	...	Sir Robert Peel
Felix Aylmer	...	Lord Palmerston
Lewis Casson	...	Lord John Russell
Pamela Standish	...	Princess Royal
Gordon McLeod	...	John Brown
Henry Hallett	...	Joseph Chamberlain
Wyndham Goldie	...	Arthur J. Balfour
Malcolm Keen	...	William E. Gladstone
Frederick Leister	...	Herbert H. Asquith
Derrick De Marney	...	Benjamin Disraeli
Joyce Bland	...	Florence Nightingale

Also Known As:

Queen of Destiny (USA)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S

Company:

Herbert Wilcox Productions

Trivia:

The world premiere found Queen Mary, after a two-year absence from the theatre, in the Royal Box in London's Odeon Theatre, accompanied by Lady Cambridge, the Duke of Kent, Lord Carisbrooke and Lady Claud Hamilton.

Movie Connections:

Version of The Young Victoria (2009)

Gallop through history

I caught this when it was shown on a digital channel as a last-minute replacement recently. In the UK at least there has been a lot about Queen Victoria recently as last month was the one hundredth anniversary of her death.

I understand that this film is largely a colour remake of the earlier 'Victoria the Great', made in black and white with much of the same cast a year earlier, but which concentrated much more on the Queen's early life. This film opens with her already Queen and largely deals with her life with Albert until his death in 1861. The rest of the film is a very quick gallop through the political ups and downs and technological achievements of the last 40 years she was on the throne.

Dame Anna Neagle, whose husband Herbert Wilcox was the producer of this, is less imperious than perhaps she could have been, but I suppose one must remember that this was made 62 years ago and the Queen had only then been dead some 37 years.

The sets and costumes are sumptuous, the expense when this was made must have been immense. It would also appear that the Palace, having seen the success of the earlier film, and the Royal family being shell-shocked by in the Abdication, saw this as a blessed piece of positive spin. The result is that this has exteriors shot at Balmoral, Windsor Castle, Osborne House (where much of 'Mrs Brown' was filmed) and Buckingham Palace, where they appeared to have had access to the inner courtyard which has probably unprecedented for the time. I don't believe any other commercial film has had permission to film inside Buckingham Palace.

The history is accurate if sanitised but it all seems a little stilted to modern ears but is still worth a look, museum piece as it is.