The Movies Behind Castles 2

For the most part, I tend not to comment much on the visuals of the retro titles I review. Some of this is because I don’t care too much about a game’s visuals unless they’re remarkably good or remarkably bad. Beyond that, however, the simple fact is that when you’re dealing with video games that are often older than you are, your graphics-based commentary is usually going to stray too far “dated” or “surprisingly good for its age.” There isn’t much to say that wouldn’t be redundant. With that being said, there is the occasional title retro game that visually catches my interest.

Castles 2: Siege and Conquest, for instance, is primarily pixilated but, in its CD-ROM version, uses extensive chunks of full-motion video. The FMV’s themselves are somewhat mixed in how well they’re employed. They’re a bit overused, but they never get too annoying and usually work well to set the tone and drive home the mood of what’s going on in-game. What interested me most about FMV’s, was their origin. Rather than filming their own live action sequences, the game’s developers instead poached clips from a pair of old movies: The Private Life of Henry VIII and Alexander Nevsky. The more I read about the two films, the more interested I became in actually watching them to see how well they held up. I thought it might be fun, in turn, to share my impressions with you all before heading into my review of Dragon Wars next week.

The Private Life of King Henry VIII
Originally released in 1933, The Private Life of King Henry VIII tells the story of the infamous King Henry VIII and his six marriages, beginning with the execution of Anne Boleyn then proceeding swiftly through the rest of his matrimonies, closing with his late-in-life marriage to Catherine Parr. Before we get further, I’m going to be honest and say that Henry VIII is not a historical figure I’ve paid much attention to in the past. I know the story about his multiple marriages and I’ve watched The Tudors. Beyond that though, I don’t know much about his life.

Keeping that in mind, gods damned if Charles Laughton didn’t make a fantastic Henry VIII. Setting aside the fact that the actor is a perfect physical match for the way most people classically envision Henry, Laughton’s performance is one that’s filled with depth and range that’s very much unexpected in the film’s first moments. To be sure, he’s written and performed primarily as something of a lustful buffoon. That said, as the story progresses there are scenes where Laughton is able to portray Henry as being more than a shallow punch line.

Late in the film, for example, there’s this great scene where Henry is being informed of his fifth wife’s (Katherine Howard) adultery with one of his servants. Initially, he reacts to the news with absolute outrage, violently attacking a member of his council for even suggesting that such a thing could have happened. As the truth sinks in, however, you can see the despair begin to emerge on his face. He sinks down onto his seat and weeps loudly and openly, left in agony by the betrayal of a woman he genuinely loved. It’s a surprisingly powerful moment, and does a lot to imbue Laughton’s Henry with a complexity that you wouldn’t have suspected at the film’s beginning when the death of another wife barely earns a shrug from him.

It’s lucky that Laughton is so good because the movie itself rides pretty much entirely on his shoulders. This isn’t to say that his is the only good performance. There are several small, recurring characters that produce amusing moments and Elsa Lanchester’s Anne of Cleves is an absolute delight. Sincerely, I would suggest watching the movie just to catch card game between her and Henry on their first night together. Unfortunately, there are several spots where Private Life drags and most of those are scenes where the spotlight is pointed at someone else besides Henry. The romantic sccenes between Katherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper for instance, are an absolute bore. Even so, The Private Life of Henry VIII is still quite good and, if nothing else, is demonstrative of the power of putting the perfect actor in the right role.

Image Source: BFI

Alexander Nevsky
The 1938 film Alexander Nevsky chronicles the efforts of the titular Prince Alexander to repel the German order of Teutonic knights 13th century invasion of Russia, culminating in the famous Battle on the Ice on the frozen Lake Peipus. The creation of Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein, it was one of the most popular films of its era and remains one of Russia’s most beloved film classics.

All of that said, is it good to watch? Yes and no.

On the one hand, Nevsky is an interesting and genuinely impressive film. Its battle sequences alone are worth the proverbial price of admission and use hundreds of extras, horses, costumes and props to craft huge and visceral on-screen clashes. Adding to this spectacle are unique visuals born from the social and political subtexts the film was built around.

Produced in the opening years of World War 2, the film portrays the Teutonic knights and their backers in the Catholic Church as being completely and utterly “mwa-ha-ha” evil. Just to give an example of what I’m talking about, there’s a scene at its beginning where the knights are shown throwing babies into a bonfire. I don’t know about you but you get much higher on the scale of evil than infant roasting.

The purpose behind this hyperbole isn’t hard to figure out. Made prior to the signing of the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany, it’s basically all just propaganda aimed at both showing the Germans to be monsters and then stirring up Soviet pride by showing them broken and defeated by a ragtag force of Russians. It goes so far as to actively making the soldiers of the Teutonic knights look like German soldiers circa 1938. The Teutonic infantry wear helmets clearly inspired by the kind worn by Nazi soldiers during World War 2. Their clergyman, likewise, wear clothes adorned with decorative swastikas.

It might sound silly (because it is) but it also kind of works. It’s exaggeration, but exaggeration in the vein of a movie like 300. It’s a vision of the events filtered through the lens of a very one-sided legend. The sort of story you could picture Russian parents telling their children around the campfire. (“And then the evil knights in their Darth Vader helmets charged the heroic army of common folk…”)

Unfortunately, while the film’s action and imagery is nothing short of magnificent, I found most of the rest of it to be markedly lackluster. A prominent side plot about two Russian commanders vying for the affections of a beautiful woman falls completely flat and, while Nikolai Cherkasov does well as the commanding title character, the rest of the cast left me with little impression. They’re never given enough material or focus to be anything more than familiar faces. In the end, while I can definitely see why a game like Castles 2 would draw on its imagery, the film overall struck as being much more style than substance. It’s definitely worth watching, but you might want to consider just fast-forwarding to the good parts.

Source: Criterion Contraption

Thanks for bearing with me on this divergence! Next week I hop back into reviewing games with the CRPG classic Dragon Wars. In the mean time, feel free to email me any questions or suggestions you might have.