A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Contemporary viewer’s may be perplexed by a film such as A Man For All Seasons. Why make a two our motion picture about a Tudor lawyer, statesman and scholar and their subsequent moral objection to the reigning monarchs marital status? Yet, during the sixties, it was entirely possible for a mainstream studio to produce a film based upon a stage play that dramatised such specific historical events. Furthermore, a film like this that relied upon strong performances and an intelligent script (and little more) could find a mainstream audience and be both a critical and commercial success. Nowadays, such productions still exist but they are now mainly the province of streaming services. Furthermore, the cinematic format has been replaced by that of a high budget TV show, which explores the topic at hand over an eight to ten hour running time. 

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Cromwell (1970)

Big budget historical costume dramas were still popular at the box office during the seventies although the public was slowly falling out of love with them. Cromwell is a curious addition to the genre in so far that it is actually demonstrably less than the sum of its parts. Despite a high budget and a quite impressive production design, it offers nothing more than a broad historical overview of the English Civil War and is actually quite light on detail and frequently historically inaccurate. It comes across as a somewhat long-winded history primer for schools and the viewer is never really offered anything more than a dozen or so bullet points of information about this period. However, it has a few merits to consider and is certainly not a total waste of time for those seeking a few hours diversion.

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