Edward the King (1979)

Edward the seventh waits nearly 60 years to become King. He wins the devotion of his people, the hearts of beautiful women and the fierce enmity of his mother, Queen Victoria. This sweeping saga covers 70 of the most tumultuous years of Britain at the height of her power. The story begins with the rebellion of a boy pampered beyond endurance, and continues through his mother’s distrust and jealousy, his marriage and scandalous affairs, his most delicate international negotiations and his behind-the-throne carousing. This thirteen part series makes Edward The King an epic for all time.

King Edward VII

The item is exactly the way the seller described it. The DVDs are just as they were described and they play well. The items will make a great fit to my collection. If the seller has any other products that are of interest to me I will purchase them from this seller. April 15, 2008

Another Sweeping British History Series

Edward the King was produced in Britain in the 1970s. In the late 1970s US audiences saw it on PBS. Although it can be a bit soap opera-like in places, overall Edward the King is another fine series from the heyday of British mini-series.

The series begins before the birth of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales with a good depiction of the often tense relationship between the young Queen Victoria, her husband Prince Albert, and her mother the Duchess of Kent. Annette Crosbie does an excellent job of portraying the highly emotional Queen. Over the next few episodes we see young Bertie, as he was known, as the victim of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria's weird theories on child-rearing and the proper education for a young Prince. Eventually we see Bertie as a young man rebelling against his parents and beginning a life of pleasure and dissipation which was only slightly diminished by the death of Prince Albert and Bertie's own marriage to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Bertie's adult life, jumping from mistress to mistress to gambling den to countless other forms of pleasure and indulgence, make up the bulk of the next few episodes. Eventually, Bertie becomes King Edward VII and the focus of the series shifts to international politics, depicting the King as "the Peacemaker" who adroitly defused several international crises and deftly managed his own widespread family, including his nephew the Kaiser and nephew in law the Tsar, while still managing more than a few illicit pleasure along the way.

The series can be a bit mawkish at times, particularly with some of the background music which evokes the worst soap opera stereotypes, but overall its fun and pleasing to watch, and the many characters, including the many Royals and politicians, are well depicted and historically accurate. February 13, 2008

Rather disappointing

I bought this series based on all the five-star reviews, a practice which has served me well with other BBC and A&E productions but did not work well this time. I found the many episodes before Edward finally becomes king to be quite tedious: a bunch of actors reciting a bunch of lines on a sound stage. There were indeed one or two clever lines per episode, and it was interesting to think about the history that was actually occurring at the time of each episode, but I wish that the five-star reviews hadn't convinced me to buy the series.

Although I have given the series only one star (in order to offset some of the five-star reviews), in all honestly I could give it up to three stars but certainly no more than three. January 6, 2008

Good old-fashioned TV

This thirteen part series does something very rare in TV: it tracks the entire life history of a single individual, seven decades in all, patiently showing all its defining events. The choice of subject did not make things easy: the vapid, womanizing Edward VII is not a very sympathetic character, though the sharpest edges have been blunted a bit in the re-telling; his marriage to Alexandra, for instance, was nowhere near as warm as it is depicted here.

The series was filmed in the early seventies. Inevitably, the execution is not up to the standards of authenticity we've become accustomed to in later years. Most of the indoor scenes (i.e., nearly all) were filmed in slightly too small, slightly too stuffy stage sets, not quite stylistically believable and with cardboard landscapes outside the windows. There is little sense of royal grandeur, and at times it feels like `Upstairs, downstairs". The eventual coronation is suggested rather than shown. Outdoor scenes do use apt locations, but look as if they are slightly out of focus. Costumes are excellent though, and faithfully follow the changing fashions.

The acting too is more of the old-fashioned stage than of modern TV, but that is not at all a bad thing. It may be overly emphatic at times - the way Queen Victoria over-articulates her words is a case in point - but it is also consistent, stylish, and quite believable. By the time we come to Albert's death, you may be as surprised as I was at the extent to which it genuinely moves you. The acting, in fact, is supremely fine, with John Gielgud as a luxury cast member doing a delicious Disraeli. But the whole thing is carried by the two female leads: Annette Crosbie as a feisty, hot-tempered yet endearing Queen Victoria, and Helen Ryan as a vulnerable, touching, somewhat child-like Queen Alexandra.

The screenwriting is very deft, but what else would one expect from Harold Pinter himself? It is quite amazing how a natural sense of the flow of time is maintained, yet without any scene ever feeling hurried. Transitions are very cleverly handled, the writer not being afraid to do an appeal on the intelligence of the viewer, something increasingly rare in TV. Necessary background information is ingeniously worked into the dialogue. That dialogue itself is surprisingly natural; only at the very end does the eulogy of the prime minister on the dead King sound as if he is talking to the camera.
The aging of characters is well-handled too, mostly; but the metamorphosis from young Edward to older Edward requires a fair degree of tolerance: the young prince turns from a frisky adolescent into a stocky middle-aged man in a matter of months. Of course, there is no good way to solve the problem of aging in a series that tracks an entire life-history; doing it through make-up would probably have been quite as bad, if not worse.

The bombastic music with its Wagner and Elgar overtones, is dated; the title tune bears an unfortunate (if not entirely inappropriate) resemblance to the final chorus of `HMS Pinafore'. Strangely, every episode is cut into two `parts', the second opening with the title image and a brief fanfare.
The series is extravagantly spread over 6 DVDs, when it would have easily fitted on 4. The image quality is variable; at times there are disturbances that make it look as if the DVD was recorded from a regular video tape. There are no extras, and there is no booklet or anything else to guide you. But all that is of secondary importance.
December 24, 2007

Timothy West is great as Edward and Helen Ryan as Queen

I like books and videos about Victorian U.K. and America, and this is my favorite for the past year. A great buy -- many hours. Every time I see it I learn something new. EVen has a sense of humor. Wish there were more movies like this. August 23, 2006

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