CATCH A CLASSIC
TCM Spotlight: Royal Treatments: Royalty Around the World
TCM, Beginning at 7 p.m.
Whether you’re a history buff, a film fan or both, prepare to travel the globe, immersing yourself in the lives, loves and legends of some of antiquity’s most iconic rulers. First up is the beloved, award-winning 1956 film adaptation of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Tony-winning Broadway musical The King and I (pictured). Yul Brynner — who also starred in the stage production — plays the
dour but dashing King Mongkut of Siam, who brings spirited British widow Anna (Deborah Kerr) and her young son to his country to educate his wives and children, and realizes he may be the recipient of the most important lessons of all. Next up, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987) won all nine Oscars for which it was nominated. The sweeping epic follows the journey of child emperor Pu Yi from ruler to political prisoner to ordinary citizen and is culled from Pu Yi’s own 1964 memoir. Then, Claudette Colbert wows as the glamorous title character in Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934). Though the film debuted just as the wildly restrictive Hays Code was ramping up, DeMille delighted in portraying his Egyptian queen in full sexual, political and intellectual power. Finally, Richard Burton plays the legendary Macedonian ruler in Robert Rossen’s historical epic Alexander the Great (1956), which won Rossen an Outstanding Directorial Achievement nomination from the Director’s Guild of America.