Last night I watched a VHS copy of the 1953 Disney film THE SWORD AND THE ROSE, which I hadn't seen since its first release when I was six or seven. After all the seasons of THE TUDORSwith their bumping humping grinding nudity and skinny Henry VIII, it was interesting to see Disney's take on a Victorian novel's look at the same Tudor court. I quite enjoyed the film. The color was beautiful, and late in the film, when Glynis Johns as Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, slugged villain Michael Gough with an oar, I had a sense of deja vu and was back in the Middletown OhioParamount Theatre, where I first saw the film.
It was interesting to see a film where Katherine of Aragon isn't a suffering victim of Henry's adultery but a bitch, and I womder if the pretty young thing dancing the La Volta with Henry was Anne Boleyn. I loved the actor playing Henry, and both Richard Todd and Glynis Johns look like fantasies of Disney heroes and heroines. It was a great deal of fun, and I've discovered that the film isavailable on DVD as a "special" to members of the Disney Movie Club. I may have to join to get myself a copy.