Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's film is the 1994 biographical historical comedy-drama, "The Madness of King George".

It was directed by Nicholas Hytner from a screenplay by Alan Bennett, adapted from his own 1991 play "The Madness of George III".

[gentle music] Nigel Hawthorne, who originated the role on stage, also plays George III in the movie with support from Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, Amanda Donohoe, Rupert Graves, Geoffrey Palmer, Rupert Everett, and Jim Carter.

"The Madness of King George" begins in 1788.

At 50, George III is an active, benevolent monarch with a loving wife and a large family including his oldest son, the indolent George, Prince of Wales, and his brother Frederick, Duke of York.

The king is a fervent supporter of the Prime Minister, William Pit the Younger, and still sensitive over the loss of his American colonies some five years earlier.

He's interested in the work and welfare of his people and thoroughly familiar with all the family details of his courtiers.

He's also rather eccentric and talks all the time, often entering his sentences with the refrain "What, what?"

As his behavior gradually comes more eccentric, his physicians dosing with physics and keep a close eye on his urine and bowel movements.

At the same time, the Prince of Wales sees his father's worsening mental condition as an opportunity to have Parliament declare the King unfit the govern and appoint the Prince as regent to rule in his stead.

The Prince has the support of the leader of the Whig opposition, Charles James Fox, who hopes the Prince, once in power, will support his party's plans for reform.

The Prince arranges a concert of Handel's music as a way of exposing his father's illness to the court and leaders of Parliament.

During the concert, the King insists on leading the orchestra, makes sexual advances towards a Lady of the Bedchamber, Lady Pembroke, and physically assaults the Prince of Wales.

Afterwards, Queen Charlotte, the king's main source of emotional support, is forbidden from seeing him by the King's doctors, who undertake to restore his soundness of mind through traditional methods, all to no avail.

Lady Pembroke suggests Queen Charlotte call instead upon the services of Dr. Francis Willis, who has had notable success in treating madness, but the King must submit to the indignities of the Doctor's strict regimen if he is to have any hope of saving his sanity, his marriage, and his throne.

Alan Bennett, who wrote both the screenplay for "The Madness of King George" and the play it was based on, was one of the leading lights of what has been called the British satire boom of the 1960s.

Born the second son of a Yorkshire butcher and a housewife in 1934, he was part of the first generation to benefit from the opening up of the leading British universities to young men of working class background.

After completing his national service as a translator of Russian, which included advanced study at the University of Cambridge, Bennett attended Oxford on a scholarship.

While there, he began performing comedy while also studying, and later, teaching history.

In 1960, Bennett appeared on stage at Scotland's Edinburgh Festival with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, and Jonathan Miller in a collection of satirical sketches titled "Beyond the Fringe".

An immediate Success, "Beyond the Fringe" later played to enthusiastic crowds in both London and New York, and all four of its players went on to careers in television, theater, and film.

Today, "Beyond the Fringe" is regarded as one of the high points of British satiric comedy, the forerunner of such popular television programs as "That Was the Week That Was" and "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

After "Beyond the Fringe", Alan Bennett wrote and appeared in sketch comedy on television before writing his first play, "Forty Years On", a satiric look at recent British history that became a major hit in 1968.

He wrote stage works for the National Theater, and radio and television plays for the BBC in the 70s and 80s before writing "The Madness of George III" mounted by the National Theater in 1991.

The production was directed by Nicholas Hytner and starred Nigel Hawthorne.

Bennett refused to allow his play to be made into a motion picture unless Hytner was hired to direct and Hawthorne to star as George III.

When those conditions were met, Bennett wrote a screenplay that, like all of his work, combines drama with elements of comedy and satire, a genuine historical sensibility with a thoroughly contemporary point of view.

"The Madness of King George" was applauded by critics in both Great Britain and the United States.

Emanuel Levy said, in a review in Variety, "Under Hytner's guidance, the cast, "composed of some of the best actors in British cinema, "rises to the occasion.

"Boasting a rich period look, almost every shot "is filled with handsome, emotionally-charged composition."

Nigel Hawthorne's starring turn as the King drew particular praise.

Hal Hinson wrote in the Washington Post, "With his powdered wig plunked down on his head "like a wilted pancake, Nigel Hawthorne's George III "is like Job as Buster Keaton might have played him.

"The scenes in which he dashes through Windsor Castle, "riding the backs of his aids and sliding down banisters, "are side-splitting bits of bawdy physical comedy.

"But Hawthorne is equally affecting "in his mellower, more intimate scenes."

Roger Ebert put it more simply in his review in the Chicago Sun Times: "I am not sure anyone but Nigel Hawthorne "could have brought such qualities to this role."

Most Americans think of George III as a tyrant who refused to honor the reasonable demands of American colonists to have a say in the taxes levied on them by parliament for the cost of their defense.

Although Americans enjoyed a good deal of autonomy and self-government at home, they objected to their lack of representation in parliament as an insult to their status as free Englishmen.

King George, on the other hand, supported parliament's right to levy taxes as its members saw fit.

Ultimately, this disagreement led to the American Revolutionary War and the independence of a portion of Britain's possessions in the New World, as the United States.

But that was only a small part of the King's story.

He lived over 81 years and reigned for more than 59 of those years.

His reign was the longest in British history to that point and has only been surpassed by the later reigns of Victoria and Elizabeth II.

During his long reign, Britain became the dominant European power, engaged in several wars, most of them with the French, expanded its holdings in Asia, and ended the slave trade.

Britain experienced an agricultural revolution and saw great advances in industry and science.

George himself was a pious man and a faithful husband who was scandalized by the loose moral of his younger brothers and, later, his own sons.

On the other hand, he doted on his daughters, whose ages in 1788 ranged from 5 to 22.

George's first instance of mental illness may have occurred in 1765, but its first clear appearance came in 1788, as documented in "The Madness of King George."

His symptoms included mania and logorrhea, or incessant talking.

He would talk for hours at a time without stopping.

An observer said his vocabulary became more complex, creative, and colorful.

At the conclusion of the film, it's suggested the cause of his illness was porphyria, a hereditary liver disorder that adversely affects various bodily functions, including, in some cases, cognitive function.

But the evidence for this conclusion is ambiguous.

Another possible diagnosis of his affliction is bipolar disorder, but there is now no way of knowing exactly what caused the madness of King George, nor was the episode in 1788 the last instance of his illness.

Symptoms of his madness recurred 13 years later in 1801, and again in 1804.

In late 1810, when he was 72, and arguably at the height of his popularity, the King suffered another relapse, possibly triggered by the death of his youngest and favorite daughter, Princess Amelia, at 27.

Already afflicted with cataracts and rheumatism, George went into a deep depression.

He agreed to the Regency Act in 1811, making his son, George, Prince Regent.

The king soon developed dementia and remained unaware of important events, including the death of his wife, Charlotte, in 1818.

During Christmas that year, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours straight and died just more than a month later, on January 29th, 1819, of pneumonia.

George III once expressed the hope that, "The tongue of malice may not paint my intentions "in those colors she admires, "nor the sycophant extol me beyond what I deserve."

In that respect, he's been well served by Nigel Hawthorne, Nicholas Hytner, and Alan Bennett.

A member of Parliament says, before the vote on the Regency, at the end of "The Madness of King George," "No one, Mr. Speaker, entertains a higher regard "for his majesty than I do."

The actor playing that role is the screenwriter, Alan Bennett, and he does indeed entertain.

Please join us again next time for another Saturday Night at the Movies.

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.