The Virgin Queen

Having previously portrayed England's Queen Elizabeth I in 1939's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Bette Davis reprises the role in the Technicolor-and-Cinescope costumer The Virgin Queen. Harry Brown and Mindret Lord's screenplay proposes that Elizabeth's relationship with adventurer Sir ...more

It doesn't measure up to the earlier The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, but as long as Bette Davis is on screen, The Virgin Queen commands our attention. The problem is that Queen was originally conceived not as Elizabeth's story but as that of Sir Walter Raleigh, with the Queen originally conceived of as a supporting part. When Davis came on board, that changed; but building her part up comes at the expense of the actual story. As a result, the film feels a bit lopsided structurally. ...more