Unfortunately, I found this movie to be dull and boring. Not because it was filmed in 1933 but it was rushed and missed a lot of important historic Tudor facts. First, it skipped his first marriage with Catherine of Aragon and abruptly went right into the execution of Anne Boleyn. Historically, a LOT happened between Henry's annulment to Catherine of Aragon and the execution of Anne Boleyn. The most important historic fact is that Henry & England broke away from the Catholic Roman Church and England started its own religion with Henry as the Supreme Chancellor. As indicated it passes both of his first two marriages rather quickly and starts with Jane Seymour. The storyline of that marriage is rushed too. It skips right to Jane having her Son and she dies the same day. Then, it continues with his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. The marriage with Anne of Cleves ends in divorce when Anne deliberately makes herself unattractive so that she can be free to marry her sweetheart, who was not Henry. In an imaginative and high-spirited scene, Anne "wins her freedom" from Henry in a game of cards on their wedding night.
The movie focuses A LOT with his fifth wife, Katherine Howard. Simply put, she is young and pretty and Henry at this point of his life was older, fatter, and unattractive. He wanted excitement back into life, just like when he was younger. However, very quickly within their marriage, she is committed with adultery and is executed. She was the second of his six wives to have been executed. When the Privy Counsel advised Henry of Katherine Howard's adulterous behavior, he wept like a child. I found this scene to be intriguing, as it illustrated that he was a regular man with normal feelings and was not just a tyrant.
Other scenes that caught my attention were:
1) when Anne of Cleves (his 4th wife) told the King to marry Catherine Parr (his final wife) towards the end of the movie. Anne of Cleves said not to marry a woman that was spiteful (referring to Catherine of Aragon, his 1st wife), ambitious (referring to his second wife, Anne Boleyn), stupid (referring to 3rd wife Jane Seymour), and young (referring to Katherine Howard, his 5th wife).
2) The last scene, Henry states, "6 wives and the best of them is the worst".
According to Wikipedia, historically the film is wildly inaccurate with the possible exception of the Anne Boleyn storyline at the beginning. It does not portray Henry's first (and longest) marriage to the Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, dismissing it quickly in the opening titles and ignoring the political and religious upheaval that followed the divorce. Jane Seymour did not die in childbirth, but twelve days after her son (Prince Edward) was born. There is no evidence that Anne of Cleves deliberately made herself unattractive to Henry; he annulled their marriage because he felt he had been misled about her appearance. Her motive for wanting an annulment -- to be free to marry her true love -- is entirely fictional (the real Anne never remarried). Katherine Howard was said to have an affair with a man named Francis Dereham even before she came to court as well as committing adultery with Thomas Culpeper, and all three were executed. Although Katherine Parr is played for comic effect as an overbearing nag, history remembers her as a patient and loving wife.
*With my Tudor knowledge and experience, Wikipedia is completely accurate with the historical inaccuracies*
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