Richard III Society:
Resources for Teachers

• Richard III Film History from the American Film Institute web site.

• Comic Relief: Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl starring Richard Dreyfus and Marsha Mason includes a riotously camp staging of the play with the Duke of Gloucester in pink, with a lisp. There's also a 1930s opus, The Tower of London, starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff et al., which crops up in mail order video catalogs from time to time and makes Shakespeare's Richard look like a Sunday School prize winner.

Other Films, Videos, or Sources of Information
Covers films set in the middle ages and educational films about the medieval era

• The History Channel
  Many videos on medieval topics, including the new In Search of the Missing Princes of England (premiered October 15, 1998), a one-hour documentary on the life and reputation of Richard III including interviews with A. J. Pollard, Colin Richmond, Peter Hammond, and others.

• The Middle Ages in Movies
  Maintained by professor William Schipper, Memorial University, Newfoundland, for ORB, the online resource book for medieval studies. Film lists and commentary, with links to important film databases.

• Medieval Films
  Maintained by Paul Halsall at Fordham University as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook

• University of Toronto Information Commons Medieval Video Collection
  The University of Toronto has one of the best programs in medieval drama in the world, and is one of the American continent's premier centers for medieval studies. Their offerings cover many aspects of medieval culture and thought. Especially interesting for Ricardians: a complete performance of the York Cycle Pageant as it might have been performed in 1485. The pagent was an important part of York civic life; Richard and his wife Anne were members of York's Corpus Christi Guild.

• Films for the Humanities & Sciences, P. O. Box 2053, Princeton NJ 08543-2053, 800-257-5126, 609-275-1400
  Their catalog includes several dozen films with medieval topics, including one on medieval London.

• Society Lending Libraries: Both the parent society and the American Branch have audiovisual lending libraries for the use of their members. Information is included in new member materials.

• See also Lorraine Attreed and James F. Powers, "Lessons in the Dark: Teaching the Middle Ages with Film," AHA Perspectives, January 1997. A review of films used the Attreed and Powers in their Medieval Film Series at the College of the Holy Cross, together with many reflections on the use of film in teaching the middle ages.

• Other Sources: Many mail order video catalogs offer programming that may be helpful: some examples include a re-enactment of the Battle of Mortimer's Cross (1461); a documentary on the armory of the Tower of London narrated by Robert Hardy; David Macaulay's excellent documentaries on castles and other medieval topics.

The Final Insult

• For a complete change of pace, treat your students to the first episode of Blackadder, wherein our hero, Edmund Blackadder, inadvertently does in Richard III (Peter Cook) at the Battle of Bosworth, paving the way for the rule of Richard IV (Brian Blessed). Even Richard's most adamant and humorless supporters howl with laughter at this one.