The Virgin Queen

The Virgin Queen is a 1955 American DeLuxe Color historical drama film directed by Henry Koster and starring Bette Davis, Richard Todd and Joan Collins. Filmed in CinemaScope, it focuses on the relationship between Elizabeth I of England and Sir Walter Raleigh. The film marks the second time Davis played the English monarch; the first was The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). It was also the first Hollywood film for Australian actor Rod Taylor. Charles LeMaire and Mary Wills were nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design of a Color Production. LeMaire then won the award for another film instead; Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Plot In 1581, Walter Raleigh, recently returned from the fighting in Ireland, pressures unwilling tavern patrons into freeing from the mud the stuck carriage of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. When Leicester asks how he can repay the kindness, Raleigh asks for an introduction to Queen Elizabeth I, to whom Leicester is a trusted adviser. Leicester grants the request.