...'I could have conquered Europe - all of it - but I had women in my life.'
One of the monumental pieces in modern cinematic story telling and dialogue, The Lion in Winter (1968) is a film based on the 1966 Broadway play. Starring Peter O' Toole as King Henry and Katharine Hepburn as his Queen, the film marked Anthony Hopkins and Timothy ("007") Dalton's legendary film debuts, and won the 61 yr old Katherine Hepburn the Academy Award for best actress. Much like watching a great Shakespearean play, all of the fireworks (and there are many in this film )take place around the great but aging King Henry II (great-grandson of William The Conqueror) and the chess game that takes place between his heirs, his wives, and all of the other global and lineal factors that normally accompany European royalty, as to who is to take over his throne.
This story can be discussed just as extensively as the history and the lives of all of the events and royal figures involved. Shakespeare wrote often of these characters and this time period, and it's nearly impossible to offer any real historical analysis in a overview like this one. But this film offers a presentation of some of history's most well known events, empires and people: King Henry, the English-French Angevin Plantagenet Empire, Richard the Lion Hearted, King Phillip II, and of course Queen Eleanor, portrayed by Hepburn.
The film is set at Christmas, as Henry is trying to bring together the whole dysfunctional family for the holidays. The whole story has a very biblical like quality to it b/c the European connection to the Pope and the Church was at perhaps one of it's most dramatic times (At the film's end Henry looks to be damn near ready to go sack Rome ala Alaric the Visigoth who sacked Rome in 410). The film thus ends on Christmas day, though really the entire film is like one long stretching scene, similar to Hitchcock's Rope.
Henry wants John to take over, Eleanor wants Richard (Anthony Hopkins), and it all culminates with Henry locking them all in a dungeon after John plots with Phillip of France against Henry. It's sort of hard to follow some of the story if you don't do a little historical research such as; why Henry keeps Eleanor locked away, why Eleanor would have been in bed with her husband's father many years before, or why Henry is involved with the half sister of King Philip II of France, the son of Eleanor's ex-husband. But in reality, of course, there were many incestuous ties in those days, and Henry would have had many wives.
Though this of course marked Anthony Hopkins and Timothy ("007") Dalton's legendary film debuts, and both turn in two of their best roles, neither stars shine quite as luminous as Katharine Hepburn, who, even at age 61, the same age that her character Eleanor of Aquitaine was in 1183, is the greatest actor ever (male or female) IMO.
A very few of the legendary and briskly delivered lines of dialogue:
... Henry II: Now see here, boy... Philip II: I am a king - I am no man's "boy"! Henry II: A king? Because you put your ass on purple cushions?
"Henry II: I haven't kept the Great Bitch in the keep for ten years out of passionate attachment. "
"Eleanor: [to her husband, Henry II] I wonder... do you ever wonder... if I slept with your father. "
Philip II: A king like you has policy prepared on everything: well, what's the official line on sodomy? How stands the Crown on boys who do with boys?
Eleanor: I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.
[to Prince John] Prince Geoffrey: If you're a prince, there's hope for every ape in Africa.
"Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out! Prince Richard: Let's strike a flint and see. "
...
My favorite scenes are the exchanges between O'Toole and Hepburn, but this scene includes Hopkins and Dalton, and represents nicely the sheer power and precision that is delivered with every line of dialogue in this film:
)take place around the great but aging King Henry II (great-grandson of William The Conqueror) and the chess game that takes place between his heirs, his wives, and all of the other global and lineal factors that normally accompany European royalty, as to who is to take over his throne. 
