Young Bess
“A Great and Spectacular Drama!”
The mother died under the executioner's axe; the daughter rose to become England's greatest monarch -- the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I. Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth's birth to her unexpected ascension to the throne at a mere 25. Charles Laughton reprises his Academy Award®-winning* role as her formidable father Henry VIII. Deborah Kerr plays her last stepmother (and Henry's last of six wives), gentle Catherine Parr. And Simmons' then real-life husband, Stewart Granger, adds heroics as Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour. In a resplendent world of adventure, romance and court intrigue, Young Bess reigns.
Details
Release Date: 5/29/1953
Runtime: 112 minutes
Languages: English
Director: George Sidney
00Production
Companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Countries: United States of America
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Reviews
CinemaSerf
Maybe not quite how it actually happened, but this was Hollywood, remember. Jean Simmons plays the Princess Elizabeth brought up in rags and riches depending on the whim of her father Henry VIII (rather rumbustiously played by Charles Laughton). Meantime Thomas Seymour (a handsome, swashbuckling rogue played by Stewart Granger) is marrying Henry's widow Catherine Parr (Deborah Kerr) and so we have our menage-a-trois. History is fact about the marriage; much less so about the "love affair" between Elizabeth and Seymour. This film follows her coming-of-age as she navigates the political intrigues after her father's death. It's is colourful and engaging - her two servants add quite a lot too. It's entertainment though, nothing too educational.
