27 thoughts on “Frock Flicks Guide to Lesser French Queens on Film: 15th c. Onwards

  1. I’m loving this series! I get a history and a film lesson all in one. I would actually like to watch Knighthood in Flower if I could find it. I’ve seen several of Marion Davies other silent films and enjoyed them.

  2. Gabrielle Anwar’s overall appearance in The Tudors was painful. At several points, you can clearly see a bikini tan line on her shoulders. Did no one care enough to try to even out the shoulder skin tone so it wasn’t nearly as obvious!?

    1. She, and the guy who played Brandon, both irritated me no end. That international super-model look! Especially when they’re hanging out in some rustic manor, eating brunch and sniveling about being banished from court. I half-expected an espresso machine on the table.

  3. And they called her Margaret, her elder sister’s name and Queen of Scotland, (grandmother to MoS). The only semi-good thing about Tudors was Natalie Dormer.

    My favourite would be Anne of Brittany.

    1. I believe the producers said that they intertwined both sisters into one for the show. Honesty it’s just lazy storytelling in my opinion.

  4. Hey, there’s three Cranach paintings that might answer the question about that weird hat in the Anne of Brittany photos. There are lots of other Cranach women with goofy hats. Must have been a German thing.

    “Cupid Complaining to Venus” – Venus is wearing a hat (and not much else–snort) that looks something like this. (National Gallery)
    “Portrait of a Woman” – another goofy hat and also the strange choking chain that is worn in the photo (Uffizi)
    “3/4 Portrait of a Young Woman” – yet another goofy hat with that silhouette.

  5. My favourite is Sylvie Testud in the role of Charlotte de Savoye in “Maximilian – Das Spiel von Macht und Liebe”. I don’t really care about the costumes there, although for a German and Austrian production they are quiet good. But Sylvie Testud is such a fine cast for the role of a French queen and along with Jean-Hugues Anglade a fine royal couple of decent French actors. The TV-production is’nt really historical accurate with many strange decissions changing the story, but it’s nice how they tried to use actors, who would be beauties in the period…

  6. “Frock Flicks Guide to Lesser French Queens on Film: A Series of Hot Mess Hair and Wigs”

  7. Francis I was a total cad and his two queens were probably more gratified by his absence than upset by it. Claude btw was Anne Boleyn’s mistress during the latter’s time in France meaning Anne probably spent more time reading and thinking about religion than coquetting.

    I have no idea what all that fabric on Charlotte of Savoy’s head is supposed to be.

    1. Maybe her henin or whatever it’s supposed to be got caught in a gale force wind?

  8. Why did no one tell me that “Hot Catholic” was a thing until now?!?!?!

    Also, Glynis Johns has long been a secret movie-star crush of mine! She was so beautiful and athletic while also having lethal comic timing. Also, even as a young woman, she had such a damned sexy voice! Raspy and mellifluous… and Welsh?

  9. Allow me to mention a lesser known Medieval queen; Bertha of Holland, wife of Philip I and mother to Louis VI the Fat ( and grandmother in law to Eleanor), who was repudiated for being too fat and sent away so her husband could frolick with another woman in double polygamy bliss…

  10. Among Francis I’s caddish ways was a tendency to make nasty little remarks about royal women. He called Mary Tudor more dirty than queenly which is obviously untrue and unfair. Mary’s conduct as Queen of France was irreprochable, and that can’t have been easy with Louis exerting himself in the bedroom every night. Poor Mary.

    1. Made out of black ostrich feathers…
      After careful study I think Marguerite Jamois is wearing a very bad hennin. I mean really bad.

  11. You have missed Marie Leczynska (Louis XV’s wife)!
    Charlotte de Turkheim was a fine choice to play her in Jeanne Poisson (TV series on Pompadour) though she was perhaps a bit too old. The same actress played Marie Antoinette 15 years earlier in Jefferson in Paris, again a fine choice as she actually ressembles Marie Antoinette (strong nose and lower lip).
    http://www.lapalatine.fr/2018/02/16-films-pour-vous-plonger-dans.html

  12. Sylvia Kristel was queen Maria Theresa in “The fifth musketeer” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079152/mediaviewer/rm638006016 although she maybe was casted only to give the show more sexapeal. But it’s the same like in modern “Versailles” with Elisa Lasowski.
    It’s a shame that Sylvia Kristel worked mostly in soft erotic films, as she was not stupid and not bad the bad actress at all (especially compared to Ursula Andress).

    Perhaps you missed the whole movie because it’s so poor.

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