Trailer
Plot summary
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, helped his brother seize the English throne, and King Edward IV now wears the crown. Richard has a hunched back and a withered arm, and he resents the power his brother holds. He decides to make himself king. His first move is to turn the King against their other brother, George, Duke of Clarence, by accusing George of plotting to murder Edward's heirs, so that George is imprisoned in the Tower of London. Richard promises George that he will get him out again. He then works to deceive the King, and he woos the Lady Anne, who hates him for the deaths of her husband and father, and he marries her.
Cast
- Paul Husonas Edward, Prince of Wales
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Richard III (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Shooting the Battle of Bosworth Field in the Spanish countryside, Laurence Olivier took an arrow in the shin when his horse jerked forwards and the archer missed; it hit the leg Richard was meant to limp on, so filming carried on.
- Olivier first wanted John Mills and Richard Attenborough for the two murderers, but Mills thought it would look like stunt casting and Attenborough had a scheduling conflict.
- During filming, Salvador Dalí painted a portrait of Laurence Olivier; it stayed one of Olivier's favorites until he sold it to pay for his children's school fees.
- The film's failure at the US box office effectively ended Laurence Olivier's career as a director of Shakespearean films, and his planned 1957 film of Macbeth never gained financing.
- Olivier modeled Richard's crookback look for the stage on theater producer Jed Harris, whom he called the most loathsome man he had ever met; Walt Disney is also said to have based the Big Bad Wolf in The Three Little Pigs on Harris.
- Near the beginning of the film Richard's herald drops his coronet, a mistake Olivier kept in as part of a motif of accidental loss of the crown that continues into the final battle.
- Olivier's screenplay took most of its dialogue from Shakespeare but also drew on 18th-century adaptations by Colley Cibber and David Garrick, including Cibber's line "Off with his head. So much for Buckingham!".
