
A Man for all Seasons, not the Tudors
Review created: 06/12/08(updated 06/12/08)

After having watched Showtime's original special The Tudors, I was sparked with the idea to know more about Thomas More, the faithful servant of King Henry VIII who was beheaded for the Roman Catholic faith. The Tudors dealt with King Henry's obsession with Ann Boleyn, but A Man for All Seasons attempted to tell the story from Thomas More’s side. AMFAS was an Academy Award winner in 1966, of course judging by the crap they give Oscars to now, you can see how the mighty have fallen in forty years; but I digress.
AMFAS is superbly acted by the great Paul Scofield as Thomas More England’s Roman Catholic Chancellor, Wendy Hiller as his wife, Lady Alice, Susannah York, a very sort after English actress of the time, as his daughter, and in an all too brief, but glittering portrayal of Cardinal Woolsey by the incomparable Orson Welles in what was probably his final role. Oh, yes, my friends, you will never see the like of actors like these any time soon.
The story attempts to stay true to historical facts, but I felt the so called bad guys were one dimensional, re: Oliver Cromwell and King Henry VIII, Leo McKern and Robert Shaw respectively . Here I will compare it the Showtime’s The Tudors and found the characters there more multifaceted, of course The Tudors were not confined to120 minutes as A Man for All Seasons was.
All in all, AMFAS won a total of 6 Academy Awards and deservedly so. It is a historical drama based on real people who learn in the end good will always triumph even if it’s centuries later.
Review ID: 10000000007571395

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