It was happy families today in 1189 when Henry II died. As a king he was brilliant, setting up a legal system and kicking the church into touch by putting Thomas Becket, his Archbishop of Canterbury in his place (a vault in said Canterbury). As a dad, though, he had a lot to answer for. His three boys were Richard the Lionheart (psychotic, homosexual, ginger); John Lackland (psychotic, heterosexual, murderer and all-round prat) and Geoffrey (who?). And I haven't even mentioned Henry's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine who would cheerfully have cut the old man's throat given half a chance.
The story would make an excellent film. Oh, wait a minute - it's already been done. See The Lion in Winter. Brill.
PS - make sure it's the original with O'Toole and Hepburn. The remake is okay, but it just hasn't got the chemistry.
In other news ...
The first all-talkie movie opened today in 1928. It was called The Lights of New York and one of its famous lines was 'You ain't heard very much yet, folks, but if you saw The Jazz Singer you'd have heard something.'
