Review of Cromwell (1970) by Michael H — 12 Apr 2012

I felt like most of the film was spent shouting and soliloquizing. Cromwell shouted so much, that by the end of the film he was hoarse. Henrietta-Maria was portrayed as a manipulative harpy, which I did not like, though I appreciated the goodbye kiss between her and Charles.

Charles himself, portrayed by Alec Guinness, I thought was pretty good, though completely led by his wife and advisers (I don't know how close that is to reality). They also crammed a lot of events into 2 hours, so Cromwell seemed unable to hold one opinion for longer than 5 minutes.

There were more battles than I wanted to see, and the politics weren't very coherent. The score, or what there was of it, was cheesy. I wasn't always sure which battle and which year we were watching.

It greatly benefited from having my dad's running commentary throughout the whole thing. This time I was able to point out a few tidbits of my own.