Sixteen years after her first stab at Elizabeth, Bette Davis returns in The Virgin Queen (1955). It's a real treat to see Good Queen Bette again, even if the film surrounding her is a trifle.
Dashing solider/sailor Sir Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd) arrives in London to gain the Queen's (Bette Davis) favor and support for an expedition to the Americas. Elizabeth becomes infatuated with Sir Walter, keeping him at court and preventing his expedition. Sir Walter falls for Elizabeth's maid, Beth Throgmorton (Joan Collins), and marries her secretly. When the Queen finds out, she angrily signs a death warrant for Raleigh and his consort.
The Virgin Queen is a pretty looking film, with Charles G. Clarke's brilliant Cinemascope photography and impeccable art direction. Scenarists Harry Brown and Mindret Lord provide some snappy dialogue and clever bits of court intrigue, as when Raleigh relieves a gormless tailor of the cloak he's made for the French ambassador. But it feels stuffy under Henry Koster's workmanlike direction: at 92 minutes Virgin's plot never really gets off the ground. A predictable love triangle, Franz Waxman's generic score, and boring supporting cast don't help matters.
Bette Davis saves the film with an enjoyable performance. If the film's Elizabeth is fairly one-dimensional, Bette has fun biting off crisp dialogue with abandon, raging like a harridan and blowing her co-stars off the screen. Richard Todd (Operation Crossbow) is dashing but colorless, while fetching Joan Collins (The Bravados) handles her character arc poorly. Somewhere among the cast are Rod Taylor and Leslie Parrish (The Manchurian Candidate).
The Virgin Queen is an unambitious, disposable costume drama. But if you liked Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, you'll likely enjoy her reprise.
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