William Barker announced in pre-publicity for 'Henry VIII' that all the positive prints of the film distributed to public cinemas in The Isles would be returned to Barker Motion Photography (BMP) after a limited screening period following the film's premiere on 24 February 1911 in London and then destroyed. This enabled BMP to charge unprecedented rates to each exhibitor for rental of the film rather than a flat purchase price. Although Barker claimed that the destruction was because of the high cost of producing 'Henry VIII' (including Herbert Beerbohm Tree's fee) and its artistic "exclusivity", BMP also made a great deal of money this way - and had already recouped their initial expenditure by sale of the Australian and New Zealand distribution rights for the film to Thomas West and Henry Hayward. The returned positive prints - that is, those prints that were said to be the returned ones - were duly burned in a very well-publicised public ceremony on Thursday, April 1911 in the grounds of BMP's studios at West Lodge, Ealing, Middlesex. Supposedly only BMP and Tree retained one negative copy each of "Henry VIII' thereafter.
Apart from Herbert Beerbohm Tree, S.A. Cookson, Basil Gill and Gerald Lawrence, all the cast were playing in a film for the first time.
The first feature-length drama film to be made in England.
Several contemporary reviews of 'Henry VIII', as well as newspaper reports, referred to the film's tints - "amber", "blue", "brown" "green" and "yellow" were mentioned but not "red". Reference to its "colours" was also included in some press advertisments for the film's cinema screenings. However, some other reviews stated that the print of "Henry VIII" seen was not "coloured", apparently meaning that it was merely tinted and said it would have enhanced the film for it to have been "coloured" (presumably meaning some form of hand-colouring or possibly an existing contemporary colour format such as Kinemacolor).
That all extant copies of 'Henry VIII' were publicly burned by William Barker on Thursday, 13 April 1911 at Ealing Studios and nothing was ever seen of the film thereafter is one of the enduring myths of UK and international film history - but myth it is.