SIXTY GLORIOUS YEARS
UK, 1938, 95 minutes, Colour.
Anna Neagle, Anton Walbrook, C. Aubrey Smith, Walter Rilla, Lewis Casson, Felix Aylmer, Derrick de Marney.
Directed by Herbert Wilcox.
Aa sequel to Victoria the Great. Produced on the centenary of Queen Victoria's ascent to the British throne in 1937, the film was a tribute and a biography of the Queen. It was so successful that this sequel was made, highlighting aspects of the long reign and events in British history of the 19th. century.
Anna Neagle re-creates her role as the Queen under the direction of her husband, Herbert Wilcox. She was to make many films with her husband in the thirties, forties and right into the fifties. Anna Neagle was a musical comedy star but turned to biographies in the thirties and created quite a gallery of people. Here she acts well, showing the range of the young Victoria to the aging and dying Queen. Anton Walbrook is effective as Prince Albert. The film shows aspects of British parliamentary experience during these times and highlights such international events as the Crimean War and Sudan. Attractively photographed in the pageant style, the film gives some insight into the British styles of film-making in the thirties.
1. A British film of the thirties, style, manner, theme, stars? Its impact now?
2. The use of colour, pageantry, tableau re-creation of history, music? The atmosphere of the 19th century and of Victorian England, the court, the common people, politics, foreign affairs?
3. The effect of the film as a sequel? The centenary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne? The atmosphere in 1937 and the memories of Queen Victoria? Anna Neagle and her status as a star of the thirties, her historical impersonations?
4. Comment on the choice of the selection of incidents to be presented in this pageant. From what point of view were they chosen, what did they illustrate about Victorian England?
5. Anna Neagle's characterization of Victoria as a person? As young, middle-aged and ageing? Was she a credible Victoria? As a woman, as queen? As seen in the preparations of her marriage, with Albert and the question of his secretary, the archery sequence, the confrontation with Peel and Wellington at the dance, the waltzing, her confrontation with Wellington about riding the horse, the more intimate scenes with Albert and her learning to be a wife as well as a queen? The background of the British royal family and the pressures on her?
6. The characterization of Albert, his love for Victoria, his German background and the general hostility and the way this was manifested for so long? His difficulties and subduing the queen? Co-operating with her? His interest in Dickens and reform and the hostile reaction of people. politicians and papers? The Crystal Palace project and the co-operation of Wellington, as something creative, Albert's vision for the 19th century and progress. the opening of the exhibition - acclaim and criticism?
7. The presentation of the times and the need for reform, the attitudes of the common people - so changeable? The Crystal Palace as a focus of this?
8. Albert's illness and the effect of his death on Victoria? How did the film build up their family life, the pageant of public life, home, Balmoral, their growing number of children? The effect on Victoria and the many years of her retirement and mourning? Was this reasonable? People's reaction? The effect on England? John Brown and his guidance of Victoria during this time?
9. How well did the film punctuate the narrative with historical episodes and their repercussions for example Crimea, the Sudan, General Gordon in Khartoum?
10. The pageantry and jubilation of the Jubilee and its effect on Victoria and people's response to her, in England?
11. The presentation of notable historical figures especially Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli - Palmerston and the Crimean War? Gladstone and the relief of Khartoum? Disraeli and the finance for the Suez shares?
12. The atmosphere of the death of Victoria and England not seeming the same, people speaking about her and the tribute to her, the meaning of her life in retrospect at her death and the beginning of the 20th century? What did Victoria achieve?
