It was warmly spoken and it was all that Warren needed. Madly, he made a lunge at me that sent proposal forms scattering like the wings of a huge flock of disembodied birds. I, of course, thought I was being attacked without realising that I most certainly was, and threw my arms up with shock. The result was that my huge paw struck Warren Whatmore a mighty blow on the side of the head and sent him sprawling in a snowstorm of papers and dust.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Warren Whatmore, sitting on the floor and looking very undignified indeed. His glasses had fallen off. I picked them up and handed them to him.
“You cruel bastard,” Warren Whatmore sneered. “Deceiving me like that. I’ll never forgive you.”
As a great actor, Richard Burton had become considered over-rated until he showed what he could really do in Becket, under-playing the title character to awesome effect while Peter O’Toole rampaged all about him. Actually, he too started out rampant as the two young men frenetically pursued wine, women and military conquest, until Henry becomes King and appoints Becket archbishop, expecting him to keep the Catholics in line. But Becket takes his position seriously, and slowly becomes pious and serene and contemplative while Henry is left to chew up the scenery alone. Remarkably, Burton in the soft role manages to dominate the film in a way which is theoretically impossible but really the two actors knew how to counterbalance each other, and together they made what had every right to be a very boring film appear quite fascinating.
Based on Jean Anouilh’s subtle play, it tells of how the two friends are forced into fierce opposition and love turns to hatred, until Becket prevails in the end, whereby Henry accidentally-on-purpose has him killed. The film starts and ends with Henry flagellating himself before Becket’s tomb, genuinely distressed that he had destroyed what he loved most. “Are you happy now, Thomas?” he asks.
Some say it is Burton’s greatest cinema achievement, but those folk must have slept through The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
