I'm a fan of Bert Lahr, and I'm also an advocate for the talents of director Ray McCarey (the unjustly obscure brother of Leo McCarey). So, when I learnt that Bert Lahr played Henry the Eighth in a film directed by Ray McCarey, I was salivating to see it. Lackaday, the movie just ain't very funny.
For some reason, the movie breezes past Henry's first three wives, then divides its screen time between Anne of Cleves (Janet Reade) and Catherine Howard (Leni Stengel), the latter caught up in her adulterous affair with Thomas Culpeper. That gentleman is played here by Monte Collins, a scrawny actor who looks even less appetising than Bert Lahr, so it's difficult to see why Lahr would be cuckolded here.
As Henry Tudor, Lahr makes an attempt to personate the famous Holbein portrait of the king, wearing a beard that looks distressingly scruffy rather than funny. Basically, Lahr does his usual schtick here, but it's less effective than usual against a 16th-century background. We get some dialogue such as "Thou hadst better scram." Lahr name-drops William Shakespeare, but he's a couple of decades too early. I laughed at a line about "Sir Walter Winchell", but much of the (very weak) comedy here is merely anachronism, with Lahr seeking a 16th-century divorce in Reno and listening to an Atwater-Kent cathedral radio.
I was delighted to see Shemp Howard listed in this film's opening credits. Unfortunately, that most under-rated of Stooges appears only very briefly in a role that could have been played by anyone. More pleasantly, we see some chorus girls cavorting in principal-boy doublets and hose ... historically inaccurate, but I'm not complaining. There's no mention at all of Henry VIII's sixth wife, so I guess this film is below Parr. I'll rate this dismal disappointment only 3 out of 10. Or, as Bert Lahr would have put it: "Ong, ong, ong!"
For some reason, the movie breezes past Henry's first three wives, then divides its screen time between Anne of Cleves (Janet Reade) and Catherine Howard (Leni Stengel), the latter caught up in her adulterous affair with Thomas Culpeper. That gentleman is played here by Monte Collins, a scrawny actor who looks even less appetising than Bert Lahr, so it's difficult to see why Lahr would be cuckolded here.
As Henry Tudor, Lahr makes an attempt to personate the famous Holbein portrait of the king, wearing a beard that looks distressingly scruffy rather than funny. Basically, Lahr does his usual schtick here, but it's less effective than usual against a 16th-century background. We get some dialogue such as "Thou hadst better scram." Lahr name-drops William Shakespeare, but he's a couple of decades too early. I laughed at a line about "Sir Walter Winchell", but much of the (very weak) comedy here is merely anachronism, with Lahr seeking a 16th-century divorce in Reno and listening to an Atwater-Kent cathedral radio.
I was delighted to see Shemp Howard listed in this film's opening credits. Unfortunately, that most under-rated of Stooges appears only very briefly in a role that could have been played by anyone. More pleasantly, we see some chorus girls cavorting in principal-boy doublets and hose ... historically inaccurate, but I'm not complaining. There's no mention at all of Henry VIII's sixth wife, so I guess this film is below Parr. I'll rate this dismal disappointment only 3 out of 10. Or, as Bert Lahr would have put it: "Ong, ong, ong!"