Time to retire the Tudors!

No other historical family of the past has received as many dramatic renderings as has the Tudor line. The incarnations of Henry, his wives, and Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots are almost countless. Yet they keep coming. If we go back to the 1930's, we have Katharine Hepburn playing a regal but petulant Mary who pouts all the way to the block. Bette Davis under tons of white make-up faced off against a dashing Errol Flynn in THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX, one of Warner's first color epics. Guess who won. Almost 20 years later she took on the role again, this time falling for Walter Raleigh.
In the 1960's a glowering Richard Burton took on the role of Henry VIII in ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS. Rolling his eyes with lust, he chased down a fiesty and sympathetic Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn. This was perhaps the most fully realized view of Henry's second bride. Not to be outdone, a youthful Vanessa Redgrave played a highly engaging Mary Queen of Scots opposite an imperious Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth. No, they didn't meet in real life, but in reel life they do. In the same decade, Robert Shaw, who was just entering his prime, strutted across Fred Zinneman's stately but rather slow A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, giving the film strength and vitality. His scenes as Henry trying to convince Paul Scofield to give up his principles was one of the film's best. The director used dazzling golden light to give Henry an almost godlike quality. Dressed in a golden outfit, Shaw contrasted with Scofield's drab, gray Thomas More.
Television, especially PBS, has kept the Tudor legacy alive with superb series about Henry and an especially fine series devoted to each of his hapless wives. Dorothy Tutin's Anne Bolyen was a highlight as was Glenda Jackson in her own series as Elizabeth. Sharing the screen with Jackson is an intimidating challenge, but the English system of grooming top actors for virtually any role helped make this series one of the best.
As we come to the recent past, we have yet another flood of Tudor mania. First Judi Dench stole an Oscar for about five minutes of emphatic English pronunciation in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Then there was Kate Blanchet's bold interpretation of the young Elizabeth in the film of the same name. Later she returned in THE GOLDEN AGE, a spectacular but clumsy film not worthy of its cast. Not to be outdone, the grand dame of English TV and stage, Helen Mirren played the monarch as she defeats the Spanish and worries about her loss of sex appeal. It's better than it sounds. On the low end of this spate of English history is THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL with the thankless, totally bland Scarlet Johannson in the title role.
But the nadir of all this Tudor revivalism is HBO's THE TUDORS, an unashamedly sleazy, blatantly historical incorrect series starring movie bad boy Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who storms through the role with little variation of his standard pout. There is a great deal of sex in every episode and some violence, but the most bothersome element is the complete lack of historical accuracy.
So let's give the Tudor family a rest. Surely there are some other lusty, conniving historical families out there. How about the Borgias? Or the Kennedys?