Cinema: Nine Days a Queen

Nine Days a Queen (Gaumont British) is a sequel to Alexander Korda’s famed The Private Life of Henry VIII, so close in general merit to its predecessor, that there seems no reason why the story cannot keep on chronologically up to and including Edward VIII. The royal panorama starts with Henry VIII (Frank Cellier) on his deathbed, cursing his courtiers and appointing his successor. Most formidable source of royal acrimony is Warwick (Cedric Hardwicke), “a man without conscience and without fear,” who becomes the power behind the new throne. He does this by setting his rivals at sword’s point until they have obliged him by eliminating each other. Thereupon he marries Lady Jane Grey (Nova Pilbeam) to his son and has her crowned. Nine days later Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s daughter, storms into London with the northern counties at her back and ends upon the scaffold Warwick’s cloudy dreaming and the brief, pitiable queenship of his daughter-in-law.

Nine Days a Queen has the qualities cinemaddicts have learned to expect from British historical studies: smart writing, fine playing, meticulous setting and casting, an august reverence for Empire. U. S. audiences, whether they have read English history or not, will have some idea of it after they have seen John Knox (John Laurie) preaching in Whitehall Palace yard; Edward Seymour (Felix Aylmer) passing sentence on his brother Thomas (Leslie Perrins) ; the pompous details of a 16th Century beheading.