Episode 12: Becket, Starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II

How’d we get a biopic about the one-time Archbishop of Canterbury and his bromance with King Henry II before Roberto Clemente? Should we have watched this movie during Pride Month? Rena and Sara debate these and other issues like when forks actually arrived in Great Britain and whipping-as-penance. Sara has many dumb questions because she majored in Valley of the Dolls Studies at college, but Rena has answers because she has been fascinated by the Plantagenets since middle school.

There’s a struggle to stay on task as other issues are considered: the charmlessness of drunk performers, irresponsible speculation about why this class of Brit actors enjoyed blacking out, bad actions from the Boston archdiocese, and profound confusion about why Becket decided to go full obnoxious born-again Christian.

Becket was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Richard Burton as Thomas à Becket, Peter O’Toole as Henry II, and Sir John Gielgud as Louis VII.

Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/01/reel-history-becket

https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1964-glenville-becket/

https://frockflicks.com/tbt-becket-1964/

Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography by Robert Sellers

Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel : A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Story retold by John Guy

Eleanor of Acquitaine: A Biography by Marion Meade

Tales From the Long Twelfth Century : the rise and fall of the Angevin Empire by Richard Huscroft

Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.

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