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Best movie ever!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I didn't have high hopes for this film. It's not exactly my kind of film...not into movies that are very much related to the military. And, other than her exceptional portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind", I am not very enthusiastic about Vivien Leigh. Similarly, while I don't question his acting ability, I' not usually very enamored with Laurence Olivier in films. And, just to add one more factor, I'm usually not very impressed with films from the 1940s from Great Britian.HOWEVER, despite all those misgivings, I really enjoyed this film!First, from some light reading that I did about about the two lead characters -- Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton -- it appears this biographical film is more faithful to the truth than are many such films. Bonus points there.The film concentrates on the relationship between Nelson and Hamilton, not on the military aspect, so that worked for me, too. However, if you are into military stuff, there are enough references to historical events to satisfy you, and at the end of the film there is a terrific sea battle, in which Nelson is killed.Vivien Leigh's performance here is excellent. Second (in my view) only to her performance as Scarlett O'Hara. In fact, every once in a while I saw shades of Scarlett. Similarly, I was impressed with Olivier here, as well. I was trying to think of another actor that could have played the part as well, and I couldn't.As far as British films of the era, this is richly ornamented and impressive in its staging and cinematography. My only criticism here is that apparently the two never went outdoors. All the significant scenes (except for the final battle) are filmed indoors.I was also pleased to see a number of fine character actors in supporting roles. One of my favorites -- Henry Wilcoxon -- is here in a significant role. Alan Mowbray is very good as the diplomat and husband of Mrs. Hamilton, and Gladys Cooper is wonderful (as always) as Lady Nelson.There's very little to complain about here. Highly recommended.

The screenplay would give a different role to Lady Hamilton and to Nelson different than the real history. Lady Hamilton actually was a very frivolous courtesan, closely linked to the to the equally frivolous Neapolitan court, Nelson's lover and capable of managing a a triangular relationship, very similar to the extended families of the current time, but also to convince Nelson to condemn to death more than 100 people of the Neapolitan Revolution without understanding the meaning of her act. All this sense doesn't shine through the film, there is just an unfortunate woman almost heroic. The story is completely different and has some implications and completely different meanings.

"That Hamilton Woman" is a dramatised version of the love story of Admiral Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton, the wife of the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. Emma Hart (nee Amy Lyon) was a beautiful courtesan who became the mistress first of Sir Charles Greville and then of his uncle Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador; it is said that Greville effectively "sold" Emma to Hamilton in exchange for assistance with his gambling debts. Despite this unromantic start to their relationship, the much older Sir William fell in love with the lovely young woman and married her. She, however, did not return his love, and when Nelson, then a dashing captain, visited Naples on official business she fell passionately in love with him. In this film the story, as the title might suggest, is told more from Emma's point of view than Nelson's. It opens in 1815, ten years after Nelson's death, with Emma, now ageing and impoverished, living in exile in France. She is arrested in Calais for a petty theft and while in prison tells her life story to a fellow inmate. The rest of the story is then shown in flashback. The film was a controversial one, particularly in the United States, when it first came out in 1941. There were two reasons for this. The first is that it violated the Production Code by showing an adulterous relationship as something romantic rather than something sinful. Emma is played as a romantic heroine rather than a wicked temptress, which is how the cinema of this period normally depicted adulteresses. Nelson's wife Frances is here played by Gladys Cooper as a jealous, vindictive and embittered harridan rather than as patient and long-suffering, which is how the cinema of this period normally depicted wronged wives (and how Lady Nelson seems to have been in real life). Emma is not only a romantic heroine but also a tragic one, a woman who gives her love to Britain's greatest hero but who after his death in battle is shabbily treated by an ungrateful nation and ends her days penniless in a foreign land- ironically, the land against whose forces her lover fought so gallantly. The second reason why the film was so controversial was that it was a quite blatant piece of propaganda. The Napoleonic Wars are seen from the British perspective, as a struggle against a ruthless and tyrannical dictator with ambitions to rule the whole of Europe. The parallels between Napoleon and Hitler are quite deliberate and are underlined by the Churchillian speeches given to Nelson. ("You cannot make peace with dictators. You have to destroy them–wipe them out!") Had the film been made in Britain, this sort of thing would have been par for the course in 1941, but it was actually made in America, albeit by the Hungarian- born Briton Alexander Korda, who acted as both producer and director, with a largely British cast. As America was not yet in the war, Korda was bitterly assailed as a warmongering propagandist by the influential isolationist movement, still blithely oblivious to the very real threat which the Axis Powers presented to their own country. According to one story Korda was summoned to appear before an angry Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was only excused attendance when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place a few days before his scheduled appointment. The two leading roles, Britain's Golden Couple of the 1790s, are played by Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Britain's Golden Couple of the 1940s, , then recently married. (This was the only one of their three films together made after their marriage). Leigh, if anything even more beautiful in 1941 than she had been in "Gone with the Wind" two years earlier, has all the glamour needed for her role, as well as the skill needed to make Emma a sympathetic figure, despite her ambiguous past, and Olivier makes Nelson suitably passionate and daring. There is also a good contribution from Alan Mowbray as Sir William, initially urbane and sophisticated but who later seems small-minded and mean-spirited, caring more for his collection of antique sculptures than for any human being, Emma included. The action scenes of the Battle of Trafalgar are surprisingly well done, given the limited special effects available to film-makers at this period. (Nelson's earlier victories at The Nile and Copenhagen, however, are not shown at all and mentioned only in passing; Korda evidently wanted to save the big show for the end). Seventy-five years on, we need no longer worry about the historical controversies which so exercised people when the film was first made. Today we can see it less as a piece of propaganda than as a fine costume drama. Certainly, it can seem a little melodramatic for modern tastes, but it is nevertheless an excellent example of the style of film-making that was in vogue during this period. 8/10

I loved this movie - although it was over two hours long, it was so interesting all the time that it did not feel long at all. The only thing wrong was that they had omitted both Lady Hamilton's first daughter that she had already at 16, and also the second daughter with Nelson, who died as an infant. Except for this, I think this was an exhaustive and faithful rendering of Lady Hamilton's life. Oh, what a roller-coaster that life was! It is difficult to know if one should envy, pity or despise her... maybe a little of everything..? The actors were very good all round. Vivien Leigh even looked like the Emma Hamilton of the portraits! Slim, petite and exquisitely beautiful. Laurence Olivier as Lord Nelson was excellent as always.I like it that the movie also gave a fine picture of the culture and the times in these upper-class circles, in Britain and on the continent. And Lord Nelson's career and victories are of course a piece of British and European history.