Product Details

• Actors: Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Elsa Lanchester, Binnie Barnes
• Directors: Alexander Korda
• Format: Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Firecake Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: February 16, 2009
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001PH9N2S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,661 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Private Life of Henry VIII [1933]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A charming, clever British comedy, January 27, 2003

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Private Life of Henry VIII [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Charles Laughton is typically wonderful in his broadly-played role as England's King, Henry the Eigth, who infamously married six different queens, divorcing or executing them as circumstances warranted. The script to this magnificent Alexander Korda production is a witty jab at English history buffs, touching only briefly on the supposed treachery of Ann Boleyn, concentrating instead on the preposterous emotional life of the lusty, capacious King. Laughton, as ever, is a marvel, skillfully presenting Henry at first as a thinly-cariacatured lout, and gracefully embuing him with gradual shades of pathos and humanity. Viewers who look to this film as historical drama are clearly missing the point: this is all about the cleverly-rendered script, which turns British schoolboy lessons on their heads, and on the classy ensemble acting, which admittedly may be hard to focus on with the lamentable quality of the current print (I'm writing in the year 2003; perhaps Criterion or some other class-act movie restoration company can correct this problem soon). Still, fans of early British cinema will enjoy this film a lot.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Laughton is great, the movie is quite abbreviated., July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Private Life of Henry VIII [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I thought Charles Laughton was superb as Henry VIII and to this day, I cannot think of anyone portraying the 16th century tyrant king other than him. However, they abbreviated the story of his first two wives, and these were the most interesting of his six marriages. We didn't even get to see the story of his first wife, Katharine of Aragon, just a notation on the screen that she was a "good woman" and that was it. His second wife, and perhaps his most interesting marriage, was totally abbreviated. Afterall, his second marriage to Anne Boleyn produced the great Queen Elizabeth I and it sprung the English Reformation. I was also disappointed because it was Merle Oberon's screen debut portraying Anne Boleyn, and she was on for about five minutes. What a waste to show such an incredibally beautiful woman for so short a time!! See the movie, "Anne of the Thousand Days" [Amazon has it], for that fascinating second marriage and the end of his first. They spent the most time on his least fascinating fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves who Henry was married to the shortest (less than a year). They did cast Elsa Lancaster (Laughton's real life wife and the famous "Bride of Frankenstein") and she provided a fine comic performance, but no one cares about Anne of Cleves!!! In history, it was an arranged marriage, she reportedly "stunk" and Henry was so repulsed by her that he couldn't consumate the marriage. Therefore, they had a "happy" divorce and she lived happily ever after as a rich divorcee. If anything, watch this movie to see Laughton's great performance, he is the quintessential Henry VIII. I always picture Laughton gorging himself on a huge poultry leg while shouting at his court and servants when I think of Henry VIII. If you enjoyed Laughton's performance as Henry VIII, he reprises it in the 1950's movie "Young Bess" which can also be purchased here.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Charles Laughton Still Wonderful As Henry VIII, April 4, 2006

By 

B. R. Jones (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Private Life of Henry VIII (DVD)

There was no actor quite like Charles Laughton and playing the title role of Henry VIII in this historical film truly made him an international star. Although the film may seem stagy and slow- going by today's standards, it still holds up fairly well. Certainly Laughton's academy award winning performance is still a joy to see. The story tells the story of British King Henry VIII and his six wives; well, actually five wives since the film begins with Ann Bolynn (Merle Oberon) his second, and even then we don't see much of her because she is about to lose her head because of adultery. We learn from the title cards which follow the opening credits that Henry's first wife wasn't at all that interesting and we need not concern ourselves with her, so it skips over her. It becomes clear later that another reason for poor Ann's demise was the fact that she failed to give the King a son, which he desperately wanted as an heir to the throne. Although it takes awhile, the King finally does get a son but we know from history that he will die young and his daughter by Ann will grow up to be Elizabeth I, but all of this is outside of the film's framework. Still, what story we do get is mostly entertaining and those that complain that the film is not historically true seem to be missing the point. It's really more of a comedy than anything else and therefore, doesn't concern itself too much with historical truth. Just witness the wonderful scene, for example, where Henry is attempting to explain to his new German wife (played by Laughton's real wife Elsa Lanchester) where babies come from!

The film is being released on DVD by a company called Allied Artists and although they claim the movie has been remastered, it certainly doesn't look it. The image is soft and there's not much black & white clarity. Fortunately, the print itself seems to be in decent shape overall, although not without a fair amount of scratches and the soundtrack could use some cleaning up too. Another annoying problem is that for a good portion of the film, we get lines of green and pink which keep fading in and out, and although these color lines are faint, it still quite annoying and probably could have been easily corrected had the film been transferred to disc more properly. The only extra is a short collection of stills from the film but these look a lot sharper and clearer than the film itself. The retail price for this disc is almost $20.00, which seems a bit high considering that picture quality for the film could have been a lot better.