Enfants d’Edouard, Les

Alternative title: Children of Edward, The Princes in the Tower, The
Synopsis: Film based on the tragedy written in 1833 by Casimir Delavigne which simplifies Shakespeare’s Richard III by concentrating on incidents and situations involving Gloucester, Queen Elizabeth, the two princes, Tyrell and Buckingham. Ball notes ‘The stress is on the emotional engagement of mother and children, the wavering of Tyrell who before becoming a profligate had lost a son, the calculated heroics of Buckingham to preserve the royal succession, and of course the insinuating perfidy of Richard’.
Country: France
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Silent
Year of release: 1910
Duration: 22 mins; 803 feet

Cast

Phillipe Garnier

General: There is much conflicting information as to who directed, wrote and starred in the film and its date of release, Ball details the various accounts p. 325 (op cit).
History: Released in Britain in 1910 (1170ft) as THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER.
Reviews: Ball, Robert Hamilton. Shakespeare on Silent Film: A Strange Eventful History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968 (96, 202, 325, 331). Ball writes ‘It is a sensational and sentimental piece, freighted with false psychology and excrable poetry, and now is deservedly forgotten as its author. How much of it the scenarist used I do not know, nor in this second-hand Shakespeare much care’.