Editing Becket (section)

==Film adaptation==
{{main|Becket (1964 film){{!}}''Becket'' (1964 film)}}
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 Best Adapted Screenplay|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 historical fact - 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.

At the beginning of the movie's DVD commentary, [[Peter O'Toole]] relates his meeting with Anouilh in Paris a few years before the film was made because he was being considered for the play. Anouilh told him that he had been looking for an idea based on a rift in the leftist [[Théâtre National Populaire]] between the actors [[Gérard Philipe]] and [[Daniel Ivernel]]. He visited Canterbury and decided the Becket story would be a good vehicle. Philipe and Ivernel were cast as Becket and Henry respectively for the Paris première of the play, but Philipe died before rehearsals were completed.