"Young Bess" takes place during a very small period of the life of Queen Elizabeth I of England. For the most part, it's about her teen years from the death of her horrid father, Henry VIII, to the execution of her friend, Thomas Seymour. Her early years, life during the final portion of her brother's reign as well as all of Queen Mary's reign are not in the film....just a small period from the mid-1540s to about the mid-1550s.
There is an inherent problem with stories from this era. History was not necessarily what it really was but more what the government wanted it to be. So, while it was very common for various folks to be executed for treason, whether they really were treasonous is uncertain in most cases and Tudor kinds and queens were notorious for lopping off heads left and right! So, a main plot point late in the movie is that Thomas Seymour was a traitor...something we really cannot be certain of even today.
As for the film, most of it is about the relationship between Seymour and Elizabeth--something about which today we are not 100% certain. Was he her friend, lover or what...well, we don't exactly know and the film assumes they were chaste and in love but never acted upon this. Who knows.
What I do know is that the acting, sets and entire production was lovely...nice MGM eye candy. It is a costume historical drama, so some migt be a bit bored by it. Me, being an ex-history teacher, understood the various machinations and history of the times...and it was most enjoyable and reasonably accurate...at least as accurate as it could be. Well worth seeing...and the two leads, Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger were actually married to each other at the time they made the film.
There is an inherent problem with stories from this era. History was not necessarily what it really was but more what the government wanted it to be. So, while it was very common for various folks to be executed for treason, whether they really were treasonous is uncertain in most cases and Tudor kinds and queens were notorious for lopping off heads left and right! So, a main plot point late in the movie is that Thomas Seymour was a traitor...something we really cannot be certain of even today.
As for the film, most of it is about the relationship between Seymour and Elizabeth--something about which today we are not 100% certain. Was he her friend, lover or what...well, we don't exactly know and the film assumes they were chaste and in love but never acted upon this. Who knows.
What I do know is that the acting, sets and entire production was lovely...nice MGM eye candy. It is a costume historical drama, so some migt be a bit bored by it. Me, being an ex-history teacher, understood the various machinations and history of the times...and it was most enjoyable and reasonably accurate...at least as accurate as it could be. Well worth seeing...and the two leads, Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger were actually married to each other at the time they made the film.