Review – A Man for All Seasons

This is the biography of Thomas More from an era in film history when it was fashionable to be neither too silly nor too sleazy. Paul Scofield plays the title role, and the amazing thing is that his understated work doesn’t get lost behind the scenery chewing of legendary hams Robert Shaw (Henry VIII) and Orson Welles (Cardinal Woolsey). To be sure, this suffers from some of the problems endemic to such productions, particularly the tendency of the scenery and the costumes to take precedence over the script. However, overall it’s a touching portrait of a man struggling in vain to use his considerable wits to reconcile his faith in the Roman Catholic Church, his loyalty to his friend and king, and his desire not to end up a victim of the headsman’s axe. The trial sequence in particular was a fine piece of writing. Worth seeing