The Lion in Winter (1968 film)

It is 1183 in the medieval Angevin Empire. Fifty-year-old Henry II of England seeks to establish a line of succession and summons his family for Christmas at his castle in Chinon, Touraine. He wants his youngest son, John, to inherit his throne, while his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, reprieved from imprisonment in England by Henry for the holiday, favours their eldest surviving son, Richard, a proven warrior.

Henry invites Philip II of France, son and successor of Louis VII, Eleanor's first husband, to settle some business. Louis had made a treaty with Henry pledging Philip's half-sister Alais, currently Henry's mistress, in troth to Henry's future heir; Philip demands either a wedding or the return of her dowry, the strategically important county of Vexin near Paris.

 

Henry agrees to give Alais to Richard to wed and make him heir-apparent in return for Eleanor surrendering the Duchy of Aquitaine. She wishes to keep to John, buying with her gift her freedom. When the arrangement is revealed at the wedding, Richard, who coveted the Aquitaine himself, refuses to go through with the marriage – just as Henry anticipated.

Perceiving treachery in Henry's ploy, John is manipulated by his middle brother, Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, to plot with Philip to make war on Henry in return for being named John's chancellor. Richard then plots with Philip while John and Geoffrey hide behind a curtain. Henry and Philip meet to discuss terms, with all three princes in hiding. Philip reveals that he had been caballing with John and Geoffrey, then with Richard separately, and that he and Richard may once have been lovers. Philip casts their romantic liaison as always having been a scheme. Richard emerges and decries this, but Philip, saying he had always loathed Richard's sight and touch, turns the knife deeper.

Recognizing his sons' limitations and plottings against him, Henry dismisses all three as unsuitable heirs and endungeons them. He readies a train to travel to Rome to demand an annulment of his marriage to Eleanor by the Pope, intending then to wed and have new sons with Alais. She protests that he will never be able to release his treasonous offspring from prison as they will slay any new heir.

Henry recognizes the peril to his plan and confronts all three sons at once. Condemning them to death, he raises his sword over Richard but brings the blade down harmlessly upon Richard's mailed shoulder. Weeping, he lets the threesome escape. Realizing his hopes are lost, and that he has been checked by Eleanor, he is resigned and falls pitifully into her arms.

In the morning, she leaves on her barge, waving while he bellows cheerful nonsenses, each realizing their love for one another. They will resume their jousting next year.

• Peter O'Toole as Henry II, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou
• Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, his estranged queen
• Anthony Hopkins as Richard the Lionheart, their eldest surviving son
• John Castle as Geoffrey, their middle son
• Nigel Terry as John, their youngest son
• Timothy Dalton as Philip II, King of France
• Jane Merrow as Alais, Philip's half-sister and Henry's mistress, betrothed to Henry's heir by treaty
• Nigel Stock as Captain William Marshall
• Kenneth Ives as Queen Eleanor's personal guard
• O. Z. Whitehead as Hugh de Puiset, the Bishop of Durham

The original stage production had not been a success, getting a bad review in The New York Times and losing $150,000. Producer Martin Poll optioned Goldman's novel Waldorf for the movies. They discussed Lion in Winter, which Poll had read and loved. He hired Goldman to write a screenplay.

Poll was meant to make a film with Joseph Levine and Peter O'Toole, The Ski Bum (which would be written by James Goldman's brother William). That project fell through and Poll suggested they do Lion in Winter instead.^[3] O'Toole, who was 36, and had portrayed Henry II in 1964's Becket, plays him at age 50.

In October 1967, the actors rehearsed at Haymarket Theatre in London.^[4] Production started in November 1967^[5] and continued until May 1968.^[6]

The film was shot at Ardmore Studios in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, and on location in Ireland, Wales (Marloes Sands),^[7] and France at Abbaye de Montmajour, Arles; Château de Tarascon, Carcassonne; and Saône-et-Loire. In an interview Peter O'Toole said that Katharine Hepburn, who was sixty years old, was at her best early in the morning while he favoured starting work in the afternoon. They came to a compromise and shot their scenes from 8:30 to 16:00 each day.

The sculpted stone figures which appear during the main title sequence were discovered by the director along a driveway near a shooting location in France. They are portrayed as appearing on interior walls of the castle in the film.^[8]

After seeing the completed film, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman offered Timothy Dalton the role of James Bond for the first time, as a replacement for Sean Connery in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Dalton declined because he felt he was too young, although he would later be cast in the role in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).^[9]

The film premiered on 30 October 1968 (29 December 1968 London premiere).

The film earned an estimated $6.4 million in distributor rentals in the domestic North American market during its initial year of release.^[10] It was the 14th most popular movie at the U.S. box office in 1969.^[11]

Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that the film was "for the most part, outdoorsy and fun, full of the kind of plotting and action people used to go to just plain movies for."^[12]

Variety called it "an intense, fierce, personal drama put across by outstanding performance of Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn. Anthony Harvey, a relatively new director, has done excellent work with a generally strong cast, literate adaptation by the author, and superb production values assembled by Martin H. Poll, who produced for Joseph E. Levine presentation under the Embassy banner."^[13]

Roger Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4, writing in 1968, "One of the joys which movies provide too rarely is the opportunity to see a literate script handled intelligently. 'The Lion in Winter' triumphs at that difficult task; not since 'A Man for All Seasons' have we had such capable handling of a story about ideas. But 'The Lion in Winter' also functions at an emotional level, and is the better film, I think."^[14]

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times declared, "Top honors for the most literate movie of the year, and for the finest and most imaginative and fascinating evocation of an historical time and place, can be awarded this very day to 'The Lion in Winter.'"^[15]

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was less positive, writing that the film miscalculated in attempting to elevate the melodramatic plot "with serious emotions, more or less authentic costumes and settings, pseudo-Stravinsky music, and historical pomp. And it just won't do to have actors carrying on as if this were a genuine, 'deep' historical play on the order of 'A Man for All Seasons' ... They're playing a camp historical play as if it were the real thing—delivering commercial near-poetry as if it were Shakespeare."^[16]

In a mixed review for The Monthly Film Bulletin, David Wilson called Katharine Hepburn's performance "perhaps the crowning achievement of an extraordinary career" but described the film as a whole as being "essentially a piece of highly polished theatricality, and not much else if one looks beyond its insistently sophisticated surface gloss."^[17]

Rotten Tomatoes collected 43 reviews through October 2021, amalgamating to a 91% approval and an average rating of 8.2/10. The critical consensus reads, "Sharper and wittier than your average period piece, The Lion in Winter is a tale of palace intrigue bolstered by fantastic performances from Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and Anthony Hopkins in his big-screen debut."^[18]

The Academy Film Archive preserved The Lion in Winter in 2000.^[30]

 

Though the background and the eventual destinies of the characters are generally accurate, The Lion in Winter is fictional: while there was a Christmas court at Caen in 1182, there was none at Chinon in 1183. In reality, Henry had many mistresses and many illegitimate children; the "Rosamund" mentioned in the film was his mistress until she died. The Revolt of 1173–1174 provides the historical background leading to the play's events. There was also a second rebellion, when Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted in 1183, resulting in Young Henry's death. While some historians have theorized that Richard was homosexual, it is not certain.

Geoffrey died in 1186 in a jousting tournament held in Paris (with some speculation that Geoffrey was involved in plotting against Henry with Philip at the time). A third rebellion against Henry by Richard and Philip in 1189 was finally successful, and a decisively defeated Henry retreated to Chinon in Anjou, where he died. Richard the Lionheart succeeded Henry II, but spent very little time in England (perhaps 6 months), after which he became a central Christian commander during the Third Crusade, leading the campaign after the departure of Philip. Richard won some considerable victories, but he did not succeed in retaking Jerusalem. John finally succeeded Richard in 1199 after Richard's death. During his unsuccessful reign he lost most of his father's holdings in Northern France and angered the English barons, who revolted and forced him to accept and add his seal to Magna Carta. John is also known for being the villain in the Robin Hood legends. Lastly, William Marshal, who during the film is harried about by Henry II, outlived the English main characters and eventually ruled England as regent for the young Henry III.^[31]

• List of historical drama films
• List of Christmas films

• Paden, William (2004). Utz, Richard; Swan, Jesse G (eds.). I Learned It at the Movies: Teaching Medieval Film in: Postmodern Medievalisms. Cambridge: Brewer. pp. 79–98.
• Bergan, Ronald (1996). Katharine Hepburn: An Independent Woman. Arcade Publishing. p. 155. ISBN 9781559703512.
• Callan, Michael Feeney (2004). Anthony Hopkins: A Three Act Life. London: Robson Books. pp. 98, 100, 105. ISBN 186105761X.
• Wapshott, Nicholas (1984). Peter O'Toole: A Biography. Beaufort Books. p. 145. ISBN 9780825301964.

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Lion in Winter (1968 film).

• The Lion in Winter at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• The Lion in Winter at IMDb
• The Lion in Winter at the TCM Movie Database
• The Lion in Winter at Rotten Tomatoes