The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

Favoring dramatic flourish over historical fact, Michael Curtiz's costume picture chronicles the tempestuous May-December romance between Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex in one of Warner Bros.' most sumptuously designed Technicolor films. Working with the brilliant Polish art director Anton Grot and cinematographers W. Howard Greene and Sol Polito, Curtiz exploits Technicolor's power to convey emotion through patterns of colored light and abstract design. Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, battling constantly on the set and stealing each other's scenes, are nonetheless cast to perfection as the aging, imperious Virgin Queen and the cunning paramour for whom she almost abdicates her throne.