FULL SYNOPSIS
Laurence Housman's 1935 stage play Victoria Regina, which has served as a showcase for actresses as varied as Helen Hayes and Julie Harris, was adapted for the screen in 1937 as Victoria the Great. Herbert Wilcox was the producer, so no one was surprised and everyone was satisfied when Wilcox cast his actress wife, the beloved Anna Neagle, as Queen Victoria. The film repeats the play's episodic approach, tracing Victoria from her 1837 coronation to her Jubilee celebration sixty years later. Ms. Neagle is faultless, if perhaps a bit too self satisfied in this actor-proof role; her best scenes are with Prince Albert, played with finesse by Anton Walbrook. The Jubilee finale was originally filmed in resplendent Technicolor (derided in 1937 as vulgar) though some scattered prints are still processed in black and white. Victoria the Great was also released as Sixty Glorious Years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi