Becket

Film appreciation by Robert Siegel of The Digital Bits

Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole star in Hal Wallis' highly acclaimed Becket. The Paramount release received such enthusiastic critical acclaim in its first engagements, that the film was reissued several times. Becket tells the story of the famous 12th Century priest Thomas Becket, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and the struggle he had with his king, Henry the 2nd, to free the church from Secular control. The adaptation of Gene Anouilh's Broadway hit examines the changing relationship of the two men. In the beginning, they are close friends who spend their time cavorting through the English countryside after game and girls. When Becket is made the Archbishop, however, the importance of the office alters his nature and he becomes more removed from his king.

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Filmed in Technicolor and widescreen Panavision, Becket incorporates the actual locales against which the drama took place six hundred years ago. Since an important part of the events take place in Canterbury Cathedral, producer Wallas had an exact replica of the church built on the largest sound stage in Europe. The company moved up and down England and France to get the details to make the production authentic. Burton, who had just completed his duties in Hamlet on Broadway, started to become increasingly active in the movies during the past few years. Though he still considered himself a stage performer, the Welshman had starred in Cleopatra, The V.I.P.s and The Night of the Iguana. In playing the title role of Becket, it was felt that Burton, for the first time, had a part which gave him an opportunity to exhibit his great talent. For O'Toole, who plays King Henry the 2nd, Becket was the first movie since he zoomed to stardom in Lawrence of Arabia. An alumnus of the British stage, the Irish actor committed to a long list of film and stage projects over the years following this release. Rounding out the cast of Becket are two famed Shakespearean actors, John Gielgud and Don Wolfit. Romantic interest was supplied by Pamela Brown and Sian Phillips, the latter of whom was O'Toole's wife. Paolo Stoppa, one of Europe's top character actors, appeared as Pope Alexander the 3rd.

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From the very beginning, a special atmosphere existed during the filming of Becket and it was maintained until the last day of production. The very theme of the picture, the struggle between English Church and State as personified by Thomas Becket and King Henry the 2nd, may have infused the all-English company with a sense of participation that even Wallace, the producer of more than 300 films, found rare and exceptional. For Peter O'Toole, Becket was "the happiest experience of my professional life." His co-star Richard Burton remarked when filming was completed: "I have never enjoyed a film as much." Peter Glenville attributes this enthusiasm to the fact that both actors had two meaty parts to play. "No actor likes to sweat day after day over two lines or some long piece of business that doesn't give him the opportunity to act, and that is often the case in movie work. But on Becket, Richard and Peter were really at it hammer and tongs - acting in the full sense of the word - practically every day. Actors enjoy that."

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Left: Foreign poster art. Right: Special artwork
created for ads in newspaper comic sections.

Every single item on the vast banqueting hall set in Becket was hand made by craftsmen of the Shepperton Studios in England. "If you are making an 18th century period film," says Peter Glenville, director, "You can easily find enough genuine period furniture and props to fill your set. When you go so far back as we have for Becket, you are in some difficulty." The problem was settled by production designer John Bryan. He and art director Maurice Carter provided the studio carpenters with drawings, so that they could hand-make three 27-foot long tables for the banqueting hall. Canadian spruce was found the most suitable wood for toning to the required antiquity. "Now I know what they meant when they talked about tables 'groaning' with food," said O'Toole when he sat down on the high table with Burton and surveyed the banquet. Sides of beef, whole suckling pigs, whole sheep, chickens, turkeys, a boar's head, pike, bowls of apples and unlimited quantities of English Ale faced the nobility for a typical 12th Century feast. Fortunately for the stars and the Barons, who had to do more than pretend to eat at the banquet, all of the food used in Becket was practical except for the boar's head, and even that could have been eaten if so desired.

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Elizabeth Taylor was Richard Burton's constant companion while he was in England with O'Toole. Liz visited the set daily. She usually arrived at the Shepperton Studio just before lunch and drove back to London with Burton at the end of the day. Producer Wallas let the beautiful Ms. Taylor know she was a welcome guest on the Becket lot by giving her a canvas chair with her name on it, a gesture Liz well appreciated. When Richard Burton filmed the murder sequence in Becket, he turned to Percy Herbert, one of the murdering barons, and asked him to please be careful with his sword. "Careful?" Herbert said, "Why I have been waiting to do something like this ever since I saw you do Hamlet at the Old Vic."

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Selected album releases, some containing full dialogue.

Burton and O'Toole were both, in the words of Becket's director, "Extremely warm, interesting, scintillating, strange, wayward, powerful and immensely talented human beings. Both came from untheatrical but totally dis-similar backgrounds. Burton is the son of a Welsh miner and O'Toole's father is an Irish bookmaker. When they were comparatively young, they both realized that acting was to be their lives. O'Toole made up his mind at the age of six, when he saw a performance of Rose Marie and fell in love, as he put it, with hard-boiled Herman. Burton's call to the theater came somewhat later when as a teenager he, encouraged by his schoolmaster, Meredith Jones - whom he still regards as one of the major influences in his life, to audition for Emlyn Williams' play The Druid's Nest. Burton and O'Toole are remarkably alike in their social preferences and gifts. They prefer to be with their mates and usually fore-gather with them in the convivial atmosphere of a pub. A Large gusty sense of humor is characteristic of them both and they share an incredible talent for mimicry." Alike as they may be as people, they were nothing alike as actors. Burton, as described by O'Toole, is a "foot deep in the soil," but, as someone once said about him, "he carries his own cathedral around with him." There was a marvelous poetic spirit coming out of his chunky, husky frame. While Burton smolders, O'Toole explodes. "His is a lean angular supercharged and electrifying presence, with a talent so astonishing in range that he will," Glenville predicted, "go on to surprising audiences for many years to come."

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Said Peter O'Toole, "It is difficult to avoid typecasting in movies. The costs and the risks are higher. A film producer cannot be blamed for looking for safer paths. Lawrence of Arabia was my first important film role. It presaged offers to do similar parts in the same image. Like a typecast western actor in a television series, it is supposed to make for better box-office acceptance. The temptation to accept is sweetened by almost fantastic money offers, but I didn't have time to be tempted. Peter Glenville, who staged Becket on Broadway, was about to direct the screen version. He offered me the role of King Henry II. I knew the play well. The Royal Shakespearean Theater had planned to do it with Laurence Oliver as the king. I would play Becket. The production never came about. Oliver went on to do it in New York while I was filming Lawrence of Arabia. I came close to playing Becket on the stage. For the screen, I preferred to play the king. King Henry II in Becket, Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia, no two characters I know are so different. Lawrence was shy, introverted, enigmatic; King Henry, temperamental, mercurial, extrovertive, more complicated. It's a challenge to play an extrovert without making it obvious. Two years previous, I would have preferred the Becket role. Maybe I will again. Right then I wanted to play the king. I was honored to get the part. I enjoyed working in Becket. I love film work and I hope to continue alternating between stage and screen roles. When people ask me how I feel about pictures, a little bit here and then something else, I tell them it's quite simple, I do it all the time in the theater when I rehearse. For two days you knock lumps out of a scene, then you switch to another scene. You chip away until it's right, the same as in movies."

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Director Peter Glenville said at the time of production, "Good material for the stage or screen is hard to come by. When one is sent a work of quality and imagination, of wit and distinction, one does not hesitate. After I had read the Gene Aouilh play Becket, I rang up his agent and said I would accept the assignment to direct it for Broadway. With Laurence Oliver as Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry II, the play's reception was highly gratifying to those of us involved in its creation. It is not often that the director has the opportunity of doing the movie version of the play he has staged in the theater. But that opportunity was to be mine when Hal Wallas, who was producing Becket for the screen, asked me to direct it. The techniques of stage and screen are necessarily widely different, and a director must rid his mind of most of the ideas he had in staging the play. There are, however, certain advantages to be derived from doing both. One's background knowledge of the subject and of the characters can be most useful. I learned certain lessons from the stage production of Becket which I was able to put to use in the film. Becket is rare as a vehicle, as it provides two great roles which must, of necessity, to be cast with two great actors. The roles of Becket and Henry II require an accomplished classical technique as well as subtlety, imagination, understanding and emotional power. We had our choice from a wide assortment of outstanding actors, but I cannot think of more ideal or perfect casting than Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. Both have distinct and unusual personalities and yet they both have certain facets in common. Both are extremely warm, interesting, humorous, strange, wayward and very talented human beings. I always thought they would be ideally cast for the film version."

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Peter O'Toole would go on to play the same character, Henry II, several years later in The Lion in Winter. He would be nominated for an Oscar both times. Becket, which cost the studio 3 million dollars went on to earn a profit, taking in 5 million in domestic rentals, plus overseas box-office. Becket is presented for the first time in high definition on Blu-ray Disc.

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