Becket
Parish Deacon

Becket

Director:   Peter Glenville

Cast:

  1. Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud,
  2. Donald Wolfit, Martita Hunt, Pamela Brown,
  3. Siân Phillips, Felix Aylmer, Gino Cervi,
  4. Paolo Stoppa, David Weston

When King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) names his former drinking partner Thomas à Becket (Richard Burton) the new Archbishop of Canterbury, he counts on his friend's unbending loyalty when it comes to religious matters. But he doesn't expect Becket to take his job so seriously. O'Toole, Burton and co-star John Gielgud turn in a trio of Oscar-nominated performances in this critically acclaimed drama rooted deep in English history.

Becket or The Honour of God (French: Becket ou l'honneur de Dieu) is a play written in French by Jean Anouilh. It is a depiction of the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England leading to Becket's assassination in 1170.

The film introduced a somewhat fictionalized plot element not in the original play. Rather than the main conflict between Becket and the King revolving around the Constitutions of Clarendon - as is depicted in the play and as happened in historical fact - the film's dispute between Becket and Henry II centers on the assassination of an accused priest by the henchmen of Lord Gilbert, a nobleman and friend of King Henry, and Becket's excommunication of Gilbert as a result.

At the beginning of the movie's DVD commentary, Peter O'Toole relates his meeting with Anouilh in Paris a few years before the film was made because he was being considered for the play. Anouilh told him that he had been looking for an idea based on a rift in the leftist Théâtre National Populaire between the actors Gérard Philipe and Daniel Ivernel. He visited Canterbury and decided the Becket story would be a good vehicle. Philipe and Ivernel were cast as Becket and Henry respectively for the Paris première of the play, but Philipe died before rehearsals were completed. 1

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