Tudor Rose (U.S. title: Nine Days a Queen) is a 1936 British film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Cedric Hardwicke and Nova Pilbeam.
The film is a dramatization of Lady Jane Grey's brief reign as the queen of England. It opens with King Henry VIII on his deathbed stating the order of succession and ends with Jane's beheading. The story deviates from the historical record somewhat, including a fictional Earl of Warwick character who is similar to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland.
The title refers to the Tudor rose. The story of Lady Jane Grey was also the basis for the film Lady Jane (1986).
Cast
Cedric Hardwicke as The Earl of Warwick
Nova Pilbeam as Lady Jane Grey
John Mills as Lord Guilford Dudley
Felix Aylmer as Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
Leslie Perrins as Thomas Seymour
Frank Cellier as King Henry VIII
Desmond Tester as Edward VI
Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Mary Tudor
Martita Hunt as Lady Frances Brandon Grey, Lady Jane's mother
Miles Malleson as Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane's father
Sybil Thorndike as Ellen
John Laurie as John Knox
Roy Emerton as Squire
John Turnbull as Arundell
Reception
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene offered a negative review, noting that he had "seldom listened to more inchoate rubbish than in Tudor Rose." Green described Robert Stevenson's direction as "smooth, competent, if rather banal" and criticized the film's historicity, dialogue, writing and scenes. Greene wrote: "There is not a character, not an incident in which history has not been altered for the cheapest of reasons," concluding that the historical-drama genre had reached "the Dark Age of scholarship and civilization."
The film was voted the second best British picture of 1936 by readers of Film Weekly magazine, trailing only The Ghost Goes West. Nova Pilbeam won the magazine's Best Acting award, besting Robert Donat for his performance in The Ghost Goes West.