Film Adaptation
In 1964 the play was made into a successful film, starring Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton with John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit and Martita Hunt. Additional scenes were written by Edward Anhalt for the film. Anhalt won an Academy Award for his screenplay.
The film introduced a somewhat fictionalized plot element not in the original play. Rather than the main conflict between Becket and the King revolving around the Constitutions of Clarendon, as is depicted in the play, and as happened in real life, the film's dispute between Becket and Henry II centers on the assassination of an accused priest by the henchmen of Lord Gilbert, a nobleman and friend of King Henry, and Becket's excommunication of Gilbert as a result.
Read more about this topic: Becket
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