The New Pictures

Young Bess (MGM) is an ideal coronation-year movie. Its heroine is Elizabeth I (1533-1603), who, like the present Elizabeth, became Queen of England at

he age of 25. Queen Bess, based on Margaret Irwin's 1944 bestselling novel,

akes a long, romantic, Technicolored look, not at the public reign of Elizabeth the Queen, but at the private life of Elizabeth

he Princess.

According to the movie, the great love in Elizabeth's life was Thomas, Lord Seymour, lord high admiral of England. (According to some history books, Tom was an unprincipled wolf who tried to seduce the princess in order to maneuver his way toward the throne.) But there were complications: Seymour was already married--to Catherine Parr, widow of Elizabeth's father, King Henry VIII. The movie makes further complications by picturing Ned Seymour, the Protector Somerset, as a villain plotting to rule England by force and terror instead of by the will of the people. Ned had his brother's relations with Elizabeth investi gated, then sent Tom to the block and the princess to prison.

Although it presents a rather romanticized view of history, Young Bess is a better than average historical movie. It has rich Tudor sets and costumes, some literate dialogue and an excellent cast. As young Bess, Jean Simmons gives a spirited performance that has both charm and imperiousness. Stewart Granger makes a dashing Tom Seymour, Guy Rolfe a convincingly evil villain, and Deborah Kerr a beautiful Catherine Parr. In the role of gross, big-bellied Henry VIII, Charles Laughton is again cast in the part that won him a 1933 Academy Award in The Private Life of Henry VIII. He seems to have a fine time as he struts around belching, disposing of five wives, and chewing up all the food -- and scenery --in sight.

Bellissima (Films Bellisslma; I.F.E.

Releasing Corp.) is what the wife (Anna Magnani) of a poor Rome workingman calls her rather plain little pigtailed daughter (Tina Apicella). The mother has harddriving ambitions to make a movie actress out of her little "Most Beautiful," but in the end she turns down a film offer because she comes to the conclusion that her daughter should lead a simple, healthy family life instead.

Bellissima has the hard, crudely vigorous look of the good Italian postwar pictures, but deep down, it is soft-focus moviemaking. The mother's last-minute change of mind is unconvincing, and there is no real contrast between the make-believe film world and the world of actuality. Without this necessary social comment, Bellissima is little more than an overblown melodrama. As the overly ambitious mother, Italy's expert Actress Magnani gives one of her earthily explosive performances. The trouble is that the role she plays is too flimsy to sustain her powerful acting. Landfall (Associated British Picture Corp.; Stratford Pictures), based on Nevil Shute's 1940 novel, is done in the typically tightlipped, understated style of the best British movies. It tells oi a World War II Royal Air Force lieutenant who is mistakenly believed to have sunk a British submarine instead of a Nazi U-boat, and of how he is ultimately cleared of the charge.

For a war picture, Landfall has remarkably little action. Instead, it concentrates on characterization, and its people, from admirals to air-raid wardens, are al ways plausible. The lieutenant (Michael Denison) is no idealized figure; he is young, cocky and rather callow. The unglamorous Portsmouth barmaid (Patricia Plunkett) with whom he falls in love is as ordinary as their romance. Director Ken (Robin Hood) Annakin has made Land fall into a simple, straightforward, almost old-fashioned story with some richly convincing detail. By making real and affecting both the fallibility and the nobility of ordinary people in a time of crisis, the film takes on an extraordinary dimension of heroism without heroics.

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