Royalty on Film Blogathon – Cromwell (1970)

This is the 1st of 2 posts that are part of the Royalty on Film Blogathon being hosted by Emily over at The Flapper Dame.  Thanks for letting me participate!  Check out the rest of the entries here.

–
“It’s an odd thing, Mr. Ireton. Every man who wages war believes God is on his side. I’ll warrant God should often wonder who is on his. ” – Oliver Cromwell

Number of Times Seen – 1 (5 Jun 2016)

Brief Synopsis – Biopic of Oliver Cromwell who led an open rebellion against the British Monarchy from Parliament in the 1600’s.

My Take on it – This is a movie that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while and thanks to this blogathon finally got to see it.

Being a history fan, I knew a bit about this period of British history, but not enough to not be enamoured by all as it unfolded before me.

They do an excellent job here of showing the positive and negative aspects of having a country run by a monarch (dictator) or democracy (Parliament); sometimes things work well and sometimes they don’t and there isn’t much difference because neither is perfect.

Richard Harris and Alec Guinness are both superb as Cromwell and King Charles I.

Despite being on opposite ends of this debate, they both showed great respect for the other and stayed calm and collected even when they had major differences of opinion on how things should be done.

They both appear regal when needing to show leadership to those under them despite everything that was happening around them.

Guinness did a great job as a Monarch trying to show and exert his power despite knowing the futility of it all.  He really keeps his calm throughout and shows how a monarch should act even under pressure.

I loved the dialogue here because they led the characters spar between each other verbally in such great ways.

The dialogue helped the action flow and it even gives us some very emotional and impassioned speeches for all of the characters.

Bottom Line – Excellent historical portrait of democracy vs. monarchy which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Harris and Guinness are superb pitted against one another and both remain calm and collected despite their monumental differences of opinion.  Both appear regal as they try to show their leadership despite the difficulties involved. Great dialogue keeps things moving and in many scenes very emotional for all involved. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Heavy make up was used so the actors would look like the portraits of their characters. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)

 

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z