A Man For All Seasons was made in 1966 (released Dec.12th) and starred Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More. It is based on a play of the same name by Robert Bolt, who also wrote the screenplay.
Robert Wittington,a contemporary of More, wrote in 1520:
From which quote the title of the movie was taken."More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons"
This movie is a wonderful period piece with authentic portrail of historical figures. Henry VIII is portraid as a man who could change from affable to angry in two seconds flat, and seconds after that be laughing over a courtier's jest, and Robert Shaw was excellently cast for the part, joining his fellow portrayers of the King, Richard Burton and Kieth Mitchell.
If there was one thing Henry was serious about it was getting a son, as had been the preoccupation of monarches for centuries. When he married Catharine of Aragon in June of 1509 he was deeply in love with her. But after sevral miscarriages and still births of sons and at least one who lived no more than a month, Henry decided it was time to leave Catharine who had become rather fat and dumpy in her old age (she was 35!) and look for a woman who would give him sons.
All would have been well had Catharine retired to a nunnery as Henry and his ministers wished. But instead, the dear lady screamed like a banshee for the whole court to hear and adamantly refused. It was then that successive moves to ever more deplorable rsidences began while Henry carried on, first an affair with Anne Boleyn and then married her in January 1533 when it was discovered that she was with child.
It is at this point that our story begins, actually a little before in 1530. Cardinal Wolsey sends a letter to More rquesting to see him. Henry wants to appoint him Chancellor of England. Behind the scenes Wolsey is conspiring with the Pope and Catharine to exile Anne, for which he is arrested that year.
More accepts thte post when Henry himself comes to Chelsea to ask him to do so. As Henry's relationship with Anne continues and they marry Henry draws up an act, the Act Of Supremacy, making any issue of Anne's legitimate, thereby bastardising Mary, his daughter by Catharine, and making Henry the head of the church in England.
More will sign to the first part, but as a strong Catholic he refuses to accept the second. He rsigns his office before being asked to sign anything but his wife Alice is afraid. When the act is drawn up he tells his daughter Margaret that, if she can, she must sign it. As he will too, if it goes not against his conscience.
But he cannot swear to it and is arrested on the charge of high treason, tried by a court of his peers, found guilty, and sentenced to death by beheading.
Thomas More was indeed a man for all seasons. Not matter which way the wind blew he stayed true to God and his conscience, to the very end.
This is an excellent movie, well worth watching both for its historical subject and the production.
Other historical personages in the movie include Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Cramner, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anne Boleyn, and Richrd Rich.
You can ask for it at your local library or order it from the movies page here.
