Cromwell (film)

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Cromwell
promotional poster for Cromwell
Directed by	Ken Hughes
Produced by	Irving Allen
Written by	Ken Hughes
Starring	Richard Harris Alec Guinness Robert Morley Dorothy Tutin Frank Finlay
Cinematography	Geoffrey Unsworth
Editing by	Bill Lenny
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	1970 (U.S. release)
Running time	145 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

Cromwell is a 1970 film, based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of Great Britain and Ireland. It stars Richard Harris in the title role, with Alec Guinness as King Charles I of England, Robert Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

1 Plot summary
2 Information
3 Awards
4 External link

[edit] Plot summary

Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, he is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.

[edit] Information

Although publicity for the movie boasted that it had been made "after ten years' research", it has been criticised for its historical inaccuracies:

Most glaringly, it seriously exaggerates Cromwell's role in the events leading up to the outbreak of the English Civil War, e.g., he was not one of the Members of Parliament whom the King tried to arrest when he entered the House of Commons, and placed a number of prime characters in places and positions they did not occupy.

It puts forward an inaccurate stereotype of Roundheads and Cavaliers wearing different clothing. In reality, they dressed the same. The New Model Army is shown in black and gold hooped coats in place of its trademark red coat.

The film misses out the Battle of Marston Moor, the largest battle of the Civil War, where Cromwell played an important role in the parliamentary victory.

Both the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester are inaccurately shown as sitting in the House of Commons, when they would actually have sat in the House of Lords.

Cromwell is shown as a Colonel at the Battle of Edgehill when in truth he was only a Captain.

Cromwell was named Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces in the movie. Sir Thomas Fairfax was the actual head of the New Model Army during the English Civil War.

The only other battle depicted in the movie, the Battle of Naseby is seriously 'reconstructed' with the New Model Army's numerical superiority of 3:2 or maybe even 2:1, being reversed to give the Royalists the superior numbers, and even Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Army's commander in chief, is reduced to a subordinate to enhance Cromwell's importance at the centre of events.

Characters who historically were already dead appear in the film after their actual historical deaths, i.e., Thomas Wentworth in 1642 (he was executed in 1641), John Pym in 1646 (he died in 1643), the Earl of Essex in 1648/9 (he had died in 1646), etc. However, the dates during which most of the events take place are not even mentioned in the film, so that the historical inaccuracies concerning them would go completely unnoticed by people who are not experts on the subject.

It puts the famous soldiers' prayer: "O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not forget me" of Sir Jacob Astley into Cromwell's mouth.

In one of the early scenes, Cromwell tells Charles I that the kind of government that he believes England should have is a democracy. It is generally accepted that Cromwell made no such suggestion to the King.

Near the end of the film, Cromwell tells the Rump Parliament that they had six years to form a new government after the execution of Charles I. In truth, they had four years.

Henry Ireton appears with a delegation of MPs to offer Cromwell the throne in the movie. In actuality, by the time Cromwell was actually offered the crown -- in 1657 -- Ireton himself had been dead for nearly six years.

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A more accurate treatment of Cromwell and his times is to be found in To Kill a King. [1]