| rdfs:comment | - Interestingly, Ginger Rogers tried out for the part of Elizabeth under the pseudonym "Lady Ainsley," much to the annoyance of Katherine Hepburn, who detested her (and actually kicked her at one point during the screen test). Nevertheless, Rogers was strongly considered for the part, until RKO decided that high drama would not be suitable to the screen image they were crafting for her. At one point Hepburn is said to have lamented the fact that she could not play both queens, on hearing which, Deadpan Snarker John Carradine remarked: "If you did, how would you know which one to upstage?" The part eventually went to Fredric March's wife, Florence Eldridge.
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| abstract | - Interestingly, Ginger Rogers tried out for the part of Elizabeth under the pseudonym "Lady Ainsley," much to the annoyance of Katherine Hepburn, who detested her (and actually kicked her at one point during the screen test). Nevertheless, Rogers was strongly considered for the part, until RKO decided that high drama would not be suitable to the screen image they were crafting for her. At one point Hepburn is said to have lamented the fact that she could not play both queens, on hearing which, Deadpan Snarker John Carradine remarked: "If you did, how would you know which one to upstage?" The part eventually went to Fredric March's wife, Florence Eldridge. Despite its many and serious faults, the film is undeniably handsomely mounted, with attractive costumes by Walter Plunkett (which, indeed, started a mini-fad for in 1936 for Scottish styles) and striking high-contrast black and white cinematography by Joseph H. Augusta. Ford may have disliked the narmy script and loveydovey romantic plot, but seems to have enjoyed deploying his actors and the various masses of extras in an almost balletic fashion in several sequences in which the characters are essentially wordless while the soundtrack (by RKO second-string composer Nathaniel Shilkret) establishes the requisite romantic mood, often with surprising success.
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