THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY THE VIII (1933) Charles Laughton, Merle Oberon | Drama | COLORIZED

The Private Life of Henry VIII is a 1933 British film directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and starring Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon and Elsa Lanchester. It was written by Lajos Bíró and Arthur Wimperis for London Film Productions, Korda's production company. The film, which focuses on the marriages of King Henry VIII of England, was a major international success, establishing Korda as a leading filmmaker and Laughton as a box-office star.

SYNOPSIS
King Henry VIII marries five more times after his divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon.

The film begins 20 years into King Henry VIII's reign. In May 1536, in the immediate aftermath of the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn, Henry marries Jane Seymour, who dies in childbirth 18 months later. He then weds a German princess, Anne of Cleves. This marriage ends in divorce after Anne deliberately makes herself unattractive so that she may be free to marry her sweetheart. Henry next marries the beautiful and ambitious Lady Katherine Howard. She has rejected love all of her life in favour of ambition, but after her marriage, she falls in love with Henry's handsome courtier Thomas Culpeper, who had attempted to woo her in the past. Their liaison is discovered by Henry's court and the two are executed. The weak and aging Henry consoles himself with a final marriage to Catherine Parr, who proves domineering.

CAST & CREW
Charles Laughton as Henry VIII
Merle Oberon as Anne Boleyn
Wendy Barrie as Jane Seymour
Elsa Lanchester as Anne of Cleves
Binnie Barnes as Katherine Howard
Everley Gregg as Catherine Parr
Robert Donat as Thomas Culpeper
Franklin Dyall as Thomas Cromwell
Miles Mander as Wriothesley
Laurence Hanray as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
William Austin as The Duke of Cleves
John Loder as Thomas Peynell
Lady Tree as The King's Nurse
John Turnbull as Hans Holbein
Frederick Culley as Duke of Norfolk
William Heughan as Kingston
Judy Kelly as Lady Rochford
Hay Petrie as The King's Barber
Wally Patch as Butcher
Arthur Howard as Kitchen Helper
Annie Esmond as Cook's Wife
Claud Allister as Cornell
Gibb McLaughlin as The French Executioner
Sam Livesey as The English Executioner

Directed by Alexander Korda
Written by Lajos Bíró, Arthur Wimperis
Produced by Alexander Korda, Ludvico Toeplitz
Cinematography Georges Périnal
Edited by Stephen Harrison
Music by Kurt Schröder
Production company London Film Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release date 17 August 1933
Running time 97 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget £65,000
Box office £750,000

NOTES
At the Academy Awards, the film was the first foreign picture to win an Oscar (Charles Laughton for Best Actor), and the first foreign Best Picture nominee. Laughton was voted best actor in a British film by readers of Film Weekly.

The Private Life of Henry VIII is credited with creating the popular image of Henry VIII as a fat, lecherous glutton who eats turkey legs and tosses bones over his shoulder (although in the film, Henry eats an entire chicken).

Historian Alison Weir has pointed out that this image is contradicted by primary sources, noting: "As a rule, Henry did not dine in the great halls of his palaces, and his table manners were highly refined, as was the code of etiquette followed at his court. He was in fact a most fastidious man, and—for his time—unusually obsessed with hygiene. As for his pursuit of the ladies, there is plenty of evidence, but most of it fragmentary, for Henry was also far more discreet and prudish than we have been led to believe. These are just superficial examples of how the truth about historical figures can become distorted."

As a result of overlapping changes in British copyright law, the film never fell into the public domain in the UK and its copyright is now due to expire at the end of 2026, 70 years after Alexander Korda's death. In countries that observe a 50-year term, such as Canada and Australia, the copyright expired at the end of 2006.

In the United States, the film's original 1933 copyright registration was not renewed after the initial 28-year term, and the film thus fell into the public domain there. As a foreign film still in copyright in its country of origin, its American copyright was automatically restored in 1996 with a term of 95 years from release, meaning that the copyright will expire at the end of 2028.

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