HotToastyRag If you love Katharine Hepburn and can't imagine how she got her nickname "box office poison", you obviously have never seen Mary of Scotland. Do yourself a favor and keep it that way.In this biopic of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, she's surrounded by those opposing her rise to the throne, including Florence Eldridge as Queen Elizabeth, Ian Keith as her power-hungry half-brother, and Douglas Walton as her effeminate suitor. Not completely alone, Kate has a few allies: Donald Crisp as a loyal Scottish citizen, John Carradine as her secretary, and Fredric March as the love of her life. I'm not well-versed on any of the details, so I don't know how historically accurate Dudley Nichols's script was, but as an audience member, this movie was atrocious. Fredric March was supposed to play someone so incredibly Scottish, he's never seen in anything besides a kilt, but since he's the same actor who notoriously mispronounced his nemesis's name in Les Miserables, could he really have been expected to speak in a Scottish accent? I wasn't the only one who found Fred's lack of accent comedic; Nathaniel Shilkret's music made it clear he thought he was scoring a funny film rather than a dramatic period piece.Kate's portrayal of Mary—and Nichols's screenplay—makes her seem like perhaps the most incompetent queen in cinematic history. Donald Crisp dares to stand up to her in one scene, criticizing her for letting herself become a woman instead of a queen, and I completely agree with him. Time and time again she's given the ultimatum of keeping either her throne or her true love, and she's unable to decide. She claims to not care about the crown, but she won't sacrifice it to run away with Freddy? She's weak, unlikable, and annoying. Trust me, you don't need to watch this movie.

esteban1747 My comment is not positive, therefore it will be brief. This story is far away from the real one. In the film Bothwell is not the ambitious man whom Mary loved, the relationship of Mary with her English "sister" is touched shallowly showing Elizabeth, the queen, as an evil but avoiding to show the complexity of the English - Scotish problem at that time and the influence of France on the ongoing events there. Moray, the Mary's half brother, was a very smart man and knew how to move himself with his well invented intrigues, in the film one cannot see much of that. The film was made to show Mary as a heroe, killed because England wanted to do that. Very simple, in my opinion, and not good for educating on history the new generation. Katharine Hepburn played well the role given to her, Fredric March and John Carradine performances were poor.

Robert J. Maxwell This is from a play by Maxwell Anderson, touched up by Dudley Nichols. It is not John Ford territory and it shows. Ford handles the staging and dramatic effects well enough, the photography by Joe August is exceptionally good, art direction by Van Nest Polglase is appropriate, and Walter Plunkett's wardrobe is evocative. The musical score is by Nathaniel Shilkret and is pedestrian.Katherine Hepburn was only twenty eight when this was shot and she hadn't yet developed her acting chops. She was to get much better later in her life and in the proper roles. Frederick March booms his way through the part of her devoted but doomed lover.The problem is that Ford just doesn't seem to know how to handle long, preachy scenes. And "Mary of Scotland" has more long and preachy scenes that anything else the poor sensitive dim-wit ever directed. Boy, do people talk. "No power on earth shall remove me from my throne. I will bide my time until the return of the Earl of Bothwell." Nope. Historical epics based on plays are not his mug of Bass.Ford does what he can with the script. He turns the rigid Calvinist John Knox into a raving maniac. Heavenly music hums in the background when Mary prays before her death -- to a Roman Catholic god. This was Ford's religion but his attachment to the church was kind of leisurely. They had to drag him to mass. And by the time he died he wore a necklace containing a crucifix, a star of David, and various bits and pieces of other religious trinkets he'd picked up over the years.There are occasional touches demonstrating the director's real interests. When Frederick March first appears, he strides over to the huge fireplace in the chilly stone room, and lifts his kilt from behind to warm his rear end. With that part of his anatomy comfortable, he turns around and warms his ventral parts. I doubt he was responsible for Douglas Walton's portrayal of Darnley as a cowardly lush who was barely masculine, what with his mascara and his lipstick and his mincing about.Ford's métier was the small community, not the Empire. He was comfortable with people who knew and respected each other and who spoke their minds openly -- but briefly. He was comfortable with movies like "Stagecoach."

MartinHafer Wow, was the dialog for this film bad--bad especially since this is considered a prestige picture--a costume drama in which RKO had a lavish budget and a nice cast. All too often, the characters tend to talk through exposition--in an effort to explains things to the audience by having the characters stating things that they SHOULD have known. As a result, what they say often just sounds dumb. For example, Mary doesn't just greet her brother but announces his full name and calls him her brother! No one talks like this! And, occasionally the characters do little explanations about what has happened in the past--but again, who talks that way?! Part of the problem was that to understand the movie and the chess-like maneuvers, you either needed a VERY lengthy prologue, some exposition (but not THIS much) or you should be a history teacher--as I am. Now let's talk about the film historically. The film makers had an obvious bent in that they portrayed Mary Stuart in a very, very favorable fashion--even if history shows her as a bit of an idiot and conniver...and probably an accomplice to the murder of her first husband as well as having involvement in various plots to kill her cousin, Queen Elizabeth of England! I have never understood the notion of portraying Mary in any manner that is favorable--though films often have! However, one thing they did get right in this film are the divisions within Scotland--many loved her because she was their rightful queen (even if she was raised in France) but many hated her because she was Catholic and the country was rapidly converting to Presbyterianism. She and John Knox (head of this church) truly did have an acrimonious relationship as her as her reign progressed.As far as actors go, the choice of the very proper Connecticut-born Katharine Hepburn to play a woman raised in France is odd to say the least. And, Frederic March with his very, very Midwestern-American accent is cast as a Scot! Such happenings were pretty common in Hollywood, but it sure makes it hard to believe these actors are playing real-life characters. Still, despite the bad casting, this might have worked--had the dialog been better. I already talked about it some, but found it laughable that Mary always seemed to talk as if she was angry and speechifying--and rarely seemed like a human being. Throughout the film, you also see Elizabeth and her manner is oddly unlike this--and she seems a bit weak and willing to allow her advisers to talk about her illegitimate birth. Considering that Elizabeth had a nasty habit of killing nobles with the slightest provocation, this sort of characterization seemed odd. So what you have are some nice costumes and pageantry but bad history and dialog. The film must have done pretty well at the box office, as more films about the Stuarts and especially the Tudors proliferated during the subsequent decade. Despite this, I can't see these films working at all today--they're just too stilted and unreal to be of much interest. I guess my problem with this movie and most other historicals of this era is that they seldom tried very hard to get the facts straight. And, as a historical purist, I find myself unable to enjoy the films very much because there are so many flaws. You probably won't notice this, but you undoubtedly will notice how dull the film is!