Becket - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Becket or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Becket

[manuel]

Richard Burton initially turned this movie down because he felt the idea of him playing a saint would cause the press to have a field day. He also said he would be more suited to playing Henry II.

[wallace]

The entire cathedral was a studio set.

[elmer]

Peter O'Toole's crown was made of cardboard.

[kenzi]

Queen Eleanor was in actuality perhaps the wealthiest and most powerful woman in Europe, and hardly the figure portrayed in the play. Although here she remarks that she will complain to her uncle the emperor, she was not related to Frederick Barbarossa. Complaining to Frederick would have been awkward for a devout Catholic anyway, as he had himself been excommunicated in 1160, and was in a power struggle with the Pope, establishing several rival antipopes before reconciling with Rome in 1177. Eleanor also says she will protest to her father, but her father died when Eleanor was fifteen, long before she met Henry.

[elmer]

The original Broadway play on which this movie was based opened at the St. James Theater in New York City on October 5, 1960 starring Sir Laurence Olivier as Thomas Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry II, and ran for one hundred ninety-three performances. Its script "Becket" by Jean Anouilh (as the basis for the screenplay) won the 1961 Tony Award (New York City) for Best Play.

[steve]

The re-creation of Canterbury Cathedral, built on Shepperton's Stage H and designed by John Bryan, was the largest single interior set built in Europe up to that time.

[alyssa]

First of two movies in a row where Richard Burton played a priest. The second was The Night of the Iguana (1964). Four movies later he would play a priest a third time in The Sandpiper (1965). In both of the latter two movies, he is an Episcopal priest having an illicit love affair.

[christina]

As soon as production had wrapped, Roger Corman arranged with the producers to leave some of the sets standing. He then moved in and filmed The Masque of the Red Death (1964), thus giving the production a far grander look than it might have had on a typical AIP budget.

[lynn]

Siân Phillips (Gwendolen) was Peter O'Toole's wife at the time of filming.

[eli]

The assassination of Thomas Becket was far more vicious and brutal than this movie was able to depict. According to Edward Grim, a man who was wounded in the attack stated: The wicked knight leapt suddenly upon him, cutting off the top of the crown which the unction of sacred chrism had dedicated to God. Next, he received a second blow on the head, but still he stood firm and immovable. At the third blow, he fell on his knees and elbows, offering himself a living sacrifice, and saying in a low voice, "For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death." But the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay prostrate. By this stroke, the crown of his head was separated from the head in such a way that the blood white with the brain, and the brain no less red from the blood, dyed the floor of the cathedral. The same clerk who had entered with the knights placed his foot on the neck of the holy Priest and precious martyr, and, horrible to relate, scattered the brains and blood about the pavements, crying to the others, "Let us away, knights; this fellow will arise no more."

[beth]

Peter O'Toole played King Henry II in The Lion in Winter (1968). He received Oscar nominations for both movies.

[duane]

Empress Matilda (Maud), King Henry II's mother, had been chosen by her father King Henry I to rule after his death, but the ruling Council of England decided it would be inappropriate for a woman to rule, and named her cousin Stephen as King. This set off several decades of war, during which Matilda captured much of western England and was proclaimed Lady of England. Though she never became Queen, she successfully established her son Henry's claim to the throne. She died in 1167, three years before Thomas Becket's murder.

[edgar]

When the play was due to open on the West End in London, Peter O'Toole was cast as King Henry II. He had to break his contract, however, as he had just landed the lead in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

[charlie]

Final movie of Frank Pettingell (Bishop of York).

[jamie]

Sir John Gielgud received an Oscar nomination for appearing in just two scenes.