LADY GODIVA OF COVENTRY
US, 1955, 95 minutes, Colour.
Maureen O’ Hara, George Nader, Victor Mc Laglan, Rex Reason, Torin Thatcher, Eduard Franz.
Directed by Arthur Lubin.
Around the middle of the 1950s, there was a popular move to present stories from the Middle Ages on screen, The Black Night, The Black Shield of Falworth, Prince Valiant, The Knights of the Round Table, Quentin Durward. This is another of the media level entries. Most of them had the comic strip touch, Prince Valiant being, literally, a comic strip. And this is the case with the story of Coventry’s Lady Godiva.
The setting is in the middle of the 11th century, the threat of the Normans invading England with William the Conqueror. Saxon nobles are against this and are trying to persuade King Edward the Confessor, part Saxon, part Norman, to acknowledge this, ousting the Normans and nominating a Saxon successor, Harold – who was, in fact, defeated at the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror.
There is a great deal of intrigue, pressures on the King, who would rather have been a monk and does not have the skills of managing his kingdom well – in the Catholic tradition he is considered as a saint, St Edward the Confessor. He is played by Eduard Franz.
Also involved is Leofric (George Nader, an emerging star of the time but who did not have follow-up success) a Saxon noble who is supposed to marry a Norman Princess. When he sees her, he has no wish to marry and is put off by her vapours and faintings! He is arrested, imprisoned by the local sheriff. In the prison he meets a fiery young woman, Godiva, the sheriff’s sister. She is played by the beautiful Maureen O’ Hara, all stops out. He also meets a group of locals, tough and drinkers, featuring Victor Mc Laglan in a typical boisterous role. Leofric and Godiva are immediately attracted – in a Taming of the Shrew kind of way, she certainly being a tough woman, not given to vapours and paintings but lifting huge logs and pulling big tables to show that a Saxon woman can be attractive. And she is, because they marry almost instantly.
There is a lot of rambunctious humour and give-and-take in the prison sequences.
But, then it is back to politics, and a Norman earl scheming against the King, a Saxon earl (Torin Thatcher) and his son, Harold (Rex Reason), clash with Leofric about lands and ownership, make a pact organised by Godiva joining to support the King. But the king’s mind is poisoned, the Saxons exiled, but Leofric asserting that he will support the King to hunt down the Saxons. And this includes Godiva who is sheltering some of them. However, this is something of a sham and a cover for Leofric to help the Saxons get together against the Normans.
When Godiva is accused of treachery against the King, it is decreed that she should suffer the punishment of an unfaithful wife: to ride naked around the city and be made mockery of. Godiva says she will do this but that the people will not mock her – so that her famous ride, presented in a guarded 1950s visual style, she with her long hair, side-saddle on the horse and led by a silent abbess with a candle, rides through Coventry and everybody turns away in respect.
Happy ending – until the invasion of William the Conqueror, the defeat of the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings, which produced a different kind of happy ending and stories of the Crusades, Richard the Lionheart and Prince John…
The director is Arthur Lubin, director of many films at universal – including films in the Francis series.
