This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is prequels, and I have to admit that it was a bit tough for me considering that the sort of movie that's a prequel is generally not the sort of movie I watch, not being into the latter-day movie series. The one classic prequel I could think of, Another Part of the Forest, is a prequel to Lillian Hellman's play/movie The Little Foxes, but I forgot to record it the last time it was on TCM so I haven't actually seen it. In that regard, I decided to go in a slightly offbeat direction:
Young Bess (1953), which is a prequel of, among others, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Jean Simmons plays Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII of England (Charles Laughton -- more on that in a bit), who had a tempestuous childhood that saw her half-brother die as an adolescent king, among other things. Elizabeth eventually becomes Queen Elizabeth I in 1558, and never married. But this difficult childhood might explain why the elder Elizabeth acted the way she did towards the Earl of Essex in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), a prequel to The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). The earlier film begins with Henry VIII (Charles Laughton again) sending second wife Anne Boleyn to her execution by beheading. Why did he have her beheaded? Well, that's explained in Anne of the Thousand Days. Genevieve Bujold plays young Anne, who is married off to Henry VIII (Richard Burton) in the hopes that she'll bear him a son, which his first wife didn't do. Instead, she bears daughter after daughter, and when Henry meets Jane Seymour, he falls in love with her and concocts a pretense to have Anne arrested and executed on a capital charge so that he'll be free to marry Jane.
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), a prequel to Above and Beyond (1952). Paul Tibbets (played by Robert Taylor in Above and Beyond) piloted the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. But to find out why the US was even at war with Japan, we need to go back 44 months to December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the planning and execution of which is depicted in Tora! Tora! Tora!. OK, I'm going to get in really deep trouble for this last one, amn't I?
Tony Spear
48 minutes ago
5 comments:
Tora! Tora! Tora! was a PREQUEL? I haven't actually seen the film but I've heard the title before, didn't realize it was actually a prequel to anything specific.
I'm 0/3 on your picks again, though I'm familiar with Tora! Tora! Tora! and I second John at being surprised it's a prequel of something. I had no idea.
I don't think any of my selections are really prequels. I would have preferred to use a third example from British monarchy, but I couldn't think of a good one. Becket is set a dozen years before The Lion in Winter, that being the third example I was going to use.
I LOVE the inventive way you went about this!
All good to great films (Tora! Tora! Tora! can be a bit of a slog if you don't know the history) but all entertaining both examples that you use.
I like Young Bess because I love Jean Simmons but a truer version of events can be found in Glenda Jackson's mini-series Elizabeth R. Still it gives you that full on pageantry.
Funny you should mention Another Part of the Forest since it's my first pick. It's not the equal of The Little Foxes but with the cast assembled it is worth seeing.
Another Part of the Forest (1948)-This prequel to Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes exposes how the cancerous home life of Regina, Ben and Oscar Hubbard’s family in their youth full of physical and mental abuse as well as hints of incest formed them into the malignant vipers they were in the original film.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)-Prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark with Indy (Harrison Ford) fighting an evil cult, rescuing kids and generally saving the day. Plenty of adventure but the weakest of the trilogy. Karen Allen’s marvelous Marion is sorely missed.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)-This many decades delayed prequel to the fantastic The Wizard of Oz explains how traveling huckster Oscar Diggs (James Franco) became the Wizard also what led sisters Glinda (Michelle Williams) and Theodora (Mila Kunis) to became arch rivals and respectively the Good Witch of the South and the Wicked Witch of the West. Colorful but empty with only Rachel Weisz as the Wicked Witch of the East standing out.
I want to see your first 2 pics but I love Tora, Tora, Tora and even though it is a stretch , I think it works and give a great documentary style to what happened during this siege.
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