Henry Koster's direction is competent, for him, but Franz Waxman's music is no substitute for Erick Wolfgang Korngold's classic score for Elizabeth and Essex.

A star performance by the 47-year-old Bette Davis, dressed in a red wig, gets the acting honors, as she impressively revisits a role she did 16 years before.

Bette Davis (under a red fright-wig) portrays Elizabeth the First, with Richard Todd as the dashing Sir Walter Raleigh, in a corny but enjoyable story of Tudor England.

Historically, it is safe to say that Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh didn't always get on, but I am not sure their relationship was ever quite this verbose. This is a good enough looking melodrama with Bette Davis and Richard Todd out to enrich England (and themselves) co-starring Joan Collins as the suitably "pathetic" lady in waiting who falls for Raleigh - and in so doing they both earn the enmity of a jealous queen. Herbert Marshall tries to bring a little weight to the proceedings; Dan O'Herlihy a little humour but ultimately we are left with a colourful, but pretty mundane, wordy, historical costume drama with the odd flash of character from Davis.