Dietrich & Old Russia - A Fascinating Phantasmagoria on Film
Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA
28 February 2000
An innocent & obscure German princess is sent to Russia to become the wife of Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne. Her romantic dreams are shattered when she finds her new husband to be a childish imbecile. Quickly growing wise, she soon begins taking lovers from among the military guard. So begins the legendary life of Catherine, Tsarina of Holy Russia, The Messalina of the North, THE SCARLET EMPRESS.
A riotous feast for the eyes, this is one of the great, unheralded films of the 1930's - enthralling for its visual impact alone. Seldom has an American film been filled with such lush imagery - tactile, grotesque, fascinating. The Russian royal palace is a charnel house full of ghouls & gargoyles - human & artistic. The actors share the scenes with fantastic statuary, twisting& writhing in silent, unspeakable pain. (Notice the tiny skeletons on the dining table.) Everywhere is death, moral decay& barbarism, even in the most powerful court in Europe.
At the center of this ossuary is the gorgeous Marlene Dietrich. Her beauty radiates, but never dominates, throughout the film. She is splendid as a young woman in a very dangerous place, who gains courage & great determination in her ordeal. Equally good is Sam Jaffe as Peter; with his leering grin & demented eyes he is the very picture of a murderous madman.
Louise Dresser, as the Empress Elizabeth, is very effective as a comic bully. John Lodge & Gavin Gordon, as Catherine's military lovers, are both stalwart. Wonderful old Sir C. Aubrey Smith has a small role as Catherine's princely father. Film mavens will spot an uncredited Jane Darwell as Catherine's nurse.
The highly emotional soundtrack, an amalgam of themes by Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn & Wagner, explodes in the film's final moments into musical pyrotechnics.
22 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Unforgettable! What a visual feast!
Author: George (waxwingslain77)26 September 2000
I am a hypocrite; I only like movies which have great dialogue. My hypocritical exception is "The Scarlet Empress." You won't find great dialogue here, but don't fret; to ME, the dialogue is insignificant. This one must be SEEN to be appreciated.
Director Josef Van Sternberg, dubbed (correctly) "A lyricist of light and shadow" by one critic, proves this point in "Scarlet Empress" more than in any other of his films. Sternberg also knew he was losing Dietrich, and I like one scene where an actor is made up (from a side view) to resemble Sternberg. This actor is essentially the only one Marlene refuses her bed to, despite having no qualms about bedroom antics with half the Russian court. Sternberg projected himself into the role of Count Alexi, a character who has more screen time than anyone other than Dietrich. Alexi is teased by Dietrich and in the end he, um "doesn't get the girl." Sternberg knew he was no longer getting Dietrich and put this knowledge on celluloid with an awe-inspiring, even malicious fire. There are two things in this film which I really LOVE. The grotesque replicas which saturate the film are of course indicative of how the film will play out. The replicas, I suspect, were not easy or inexpensive to make--which makes them all the more fascinating, horrifying and MESMERIZING!
The background score. I have never seen a drama from the 1930s which used music more brilliantly than "Scarlet Empress." In a scene in a stable, when there is a chance that the two principals may make love, they are interrupted by the braying of a horse, which had been out of sight of the two. (According to many historians, this scene has much, MUCH deeper significance than it seems.) I cannot write what the historians have told to me on this board. It would be inappropriate. But before the horse neighs in that scene, Dietrich is twirling from a rope, and the music in the background lends immense eroticism to the scene, as does a straw which keeps going into and out of Marlene's mouth. The music combined with the beautiful lighting is stunning! There is also an opening torture scene which features a man swinging to and fro inside a huge bell, his head causing the bell to peal. Then, a quick dissolve to an innocent young lady who is flying high on her swing. THAT is a feat of genius!
If you can ignore some historical inaccuracies, which I suggest you do, and allow yourself to gorge on the beautiful lighting, music, as well as most scenes, I dare you to tell me that the film didn't MESMERIZE you! A TEN!
This pre-Production code film is a treasure throughout
14 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
The Making of A Great Empress
Author: theowinthrop from United States
2 July 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Josef Von Sternberg thought very extensively about the effects he wanted in THE SCARLET EMPRESS. He wanted to push the cinematic effects to show the huge Russian Empire and to show the spirituality of the Russo Orthodox Church. Therefore the visual effects of THE SCARLET EMPRESS are quite striking, as is the anachronistic sound track (the music by Anton Rubinestein is very religious, but it is not from the middle of the 18th Century but from 100 years later). His use of candles - literally hundreds to get an idea of the Russo Ortodoxy of 1760 - works quite well to display the pageantry of the religion. And note the gargantuan doors used in the Royal palace.
In THE RISE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT, the story line suggested that Elizabeth Bergner's Catherine did fall for a handsome looking, but unstable Peter (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). But in reality Peter was an unstable and cowardly figure. Sam Jaffe's performance is far closer to Peter III of Russia (although one of his lines, when he says: "I hate my wife" is done too crazily to be realistic). He does look forward to ruling Russia, in order to send his wife (after a divorce) to a convent, and to marry whomever he wants.
But even Jaffe's Peter was not quite the historical one. Peter III may have been insane, but he had a tremendous affection for Prussia and it's ruler, Frederick the Great. Russian foreign policy in 1760 was that of Tsarina Elizabeth (Louis Dresser in this film). The Empress was allied with the French and Austrians against Prussia. One of the major policy changes that Peter III brought was to end this alliance with France and Austria. It affected Prussia's precarious position in the Seven Years War, and enabled Frederick to reorganize and defeat the Austrians and French. None of this is mentioned in either of the two films.
What Von Sternberg did get right here (not as well developed in THE RISE) was that Sophie/Catherine took the time she was married to the Grand Duke to study up on the Russian people, their religion, their customs. She was a very sharp woman (as her handling of the government would eventually show). Also Sophie/Catherine used her feminine abilities to make inroads with the nobility and military leaders, such as the fictional Count Alexei (John Lodge) and the real Captain Gregori Orlov. Many did become her lovers. One of them may have fathered the boy who would one day become Tsar Paul I of Russia This is hinted at in THE SCARLET EMPRESS (the scene where Jaffe is congratulated about his new heir gives that performer a chance to be quite indignant - a welcome change from his insanity characterization). Marlene Dietrich's cool beauty and wits come across as Catherine learns the fundamentals of her new country, and becomes fully prepared to take it over from her incompetent husband's hands.
I liked THE RISE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT, but THE SCARLET EMPRESS is a better done movie on all sides.
It may be kitsch and the most OTT of all spectacles but it has its own magnificence, (it's a masterpiece of kitsch). There is a delirium about the film that very few film-makers have matched. Today few film-makers would want to. In a way it re-defines camp; it has all the trimmings but with an intelligence and a bravura sense of cinema that lifts it into a different dimension altogether. The 'deliberate' ham acting of most of the cast, the broad American accents and the idiosyncratic dialogue are all at odds with the whole look of the film, its visual extravagance and the huge Expressionist sets. At times it looks like a silent film with its wordless passages and use of inter-titles and like the great silent epics it uses its imagery to propel its narrative.
It's not about the reign of Catherine the Great, (it ends when she comes to power), but rather it's about her early life at the Russian Court and her disastrous marriage to the mad Grand Duke Peter, (Sam Jaffe, emoting like a demented Ken Dodd). But the plot doesn't seem to matter either. It's as if Von Sternberg only seems interested in the trappings of power, in the minutiae of court intrigue rather than in the intrigue itself, (in this respect it's a bit like Sofia Coppolla's "Marie-Antoinette"), and, of course, in Dietrich he has a magnificent Catherine. Dietrich may have been the greatest 'non-actress' that ever lived. Beloved by the camera, she simply had to react. No director ever had a subject as fetishistically adored and of all their collaborations this was their greatest achievement.
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Insane, brilliant, etc.
Author: JasparLamarCrabb from Boston, MA
6 January 2010
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Josef Von Sternberg's outrageous masterpiece featuring Marlene Dietrich as Catherine the Great and Sam Jaffe as Peter, her half-wit foil. It's a thrilling film full of opulence, with Sternberg serving up his most assured direction. This is the best of the director's collaborations with Dietrich. It's full of bizarre touches, including highly ghoulish art direction, a WAY over the top performance by Jaffe and an almost way over the top performance by Louise Dresser (as a very bossy Empress Elizabeth Petrovna). The cinematography by Bert Glennon is stunning and the Travis Banton costumes are outlandish. The film reaches a near camp crescendo when Dietrich dons a uniform and rallies the Russian army to her aid. It's an insane, brilliantly conceived film. Sternberg produced, had a hand in the editing and also worked on the film's lighting (it would be hard to argue that Dietrich ever looked better!)
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
royal history brought to life
Author: RanchoTuVu from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
27 March 2008
Apparently European royalty (especially attractive daughters of royal land rich and cash poor families) shuffled about, intermarrying into other lineages in order to maintain power and prestige. Thus Princess Sofia Fredericka of a not so well off German principality, was sent off to Russia in an arranged marriage with the sadistic "idiot son" Peter, (Sam Jaffe) of the aging, iron-willed empress Elizabeth Petrovna (Louise Dresser), in her hope (Elizabeth's) that their marriage (Fredericka's and Peter's) would produce a son to take over the Russian throne, in order, apparently, to keep Peter from power. Imagine how he must have felt? In any event, Josef Von Sternberg made this "fantasia" (Halliwell's Film Guide, 1995) about that particular point of history, giving it its own life by utilizing just about every inch of available space on the screen to stuff it with courtesans, gargoyles, statues, paintings, horses, etc... and in the midst of it all, the innocent, lovely, smart, witty, scheming, highly seductive Fredericka (annointed Catherine) played by Marlene Dietrich, whose face is photographed (Bert Glennon) behind various veils and other transparent fabrics, as she personally seduces the palace guards and works her way into power, avoiding decapitation by Peter and his host of opportunistic followers.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
amazing, amazing and even more amazing for 1934
Author: brtor222 from Canada
15 January 2012
Rarely do I respond like this to a film from this era! How on earth this piece of surreal art got made is astounding! The art direction, the costumes, the huge sets and outlandish props, the lighting (so many candles!), the visual effects, the great camera movement. All way ahead of its time.
And Paramount executives approved all this grotesqueness? Well, someone at Paramount had the sense to allow it all to get the green light! And Sternberg--what medications was he on? The horse symbols well, we can all speculate what was going on there. But insanely as everything is, it is great cinema indeed. Several references I checked called this an historical drama! I was laughing so much through this film, I thought for sure it must be high comedy. The category doesn't matter today...it's just a great camp film and absolutely requires multiple viewings to take it all in.
I loved Dietrich so much here...those eyes! What actress today would dare to be so effective in non-speaking camera shots...she is so demure and quiet in the opening half of the film!..so subtle and smouldering underneath and beautiful..Glennon filmed her so exquisitely with his lighting camera-work (Sternberg was also a master of lighting). Just like William Daniels whose camera fell in love with another goddess (Garbo).
I can't recommend this film enough!! My only complaint is that the opening credits did not credit the art directors,costumes,film editing, etc. nor the great music used (yes they are re-arranged selections from Tchaikovsky,Wagner, etc.) but who arranged it all in the first place? Was it Sternberg? Anyway, superb use of the music for its time.
An absolutely unbelievable film and the pace never lets up for one minute!!! Some earlier Sternberg entries lagged in places and made me sleepy. Not this one! We will never see anything like this again!
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
THE SCARLET EMPRESS (Josef von Sternberg, 1934) ****
Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
2 June 2011
Josef von Sternberg's overpowering masterpiece is "a visual orgy" unparalleled in the annals of Hollywood history – the ne plus ultra of ornate production design, though Bert Glennon's luminous cinematography (occasionally shooting star Marlene Dietrich through a gauze) is equally irreproachable. Movie critic David Thomson, who had singled out the director among the 11 greatest film-makers in an essay on Howard Hawks in his indispensable "A Biographical Dictionary Of The Cinema", wrote elsewhere about THE SCARLET EMPRESS specifically that it is "often hailed as the fullest demonstration of Sternberg's genius…in truth…out of control – and it is not a picture he talks about very much in his self-serving autobiography". This is an early example of rival productions being set-up concurrently on the same subject, but it emerges as superior to the contemporaneous Alexander Korda-Paul Czinner British production CATHERINE THE GREAT in just about every conceivable way (even if it proved a commercial disaster that led to Dietrich being declared "box-office poison"!).
Marlene Dietrich shines, delivering one of her most nuanced performances, as the young ingénue who believably matures into an ambitious Czarina able to lure men into usurping the Russian throne in her name (even leading them atop their steeds in full military regalia during the virtually dialogue-free climactic storming of the Palace!). The fact that Catherine was being portrayed by Dietrich made it conceivable that the Empress should have been sexually active outside wedlock – something that is not possible with Elizabeth Bergner – to the point of being impregnated by a soldier (I wonder just what the Russians made of this particular turn-of-events)! Although like the Korda version there is also a soldier named Orlof, here he only comes to prominence in the film's latter stages and is even made to murder the Czar (he is played by an unrecognizable Gavin Gordon); for the most part, Catherine's love interest is virile ambassador John Lodge (evoking Clark Gable in his one notable role). Even so, she repays Lodge's night-time tryst with the Empress by doing so herself later with Orlof and is seen playing innocent games with her ladies-in-waiting and personal guards as the old Empress lies dying!
Remarkably, three great character actors appear right in the film's opening scene in which young Catherine (played by Maria Riva, Dietrich's own daughter) is waited upon by C. Aubrey Smith (playing Catherine's father), Edward Van Sloan and Jane Darwell; indeed, the last two never feature in the film again! The film's acting honors, however, are shared between a debuting Sam Jaffe (as a perennially wild-eyed Peter III) and Louise Dresser (as Czarina Elizabeth; she had previously played Catherine II herself in the Rudolph Valentino swashbuckler, THE EAGLE {1925}); all three leads offer a vastly different characterization to their counterparts in the aforementioned British film. The old Empress has an effete lover here, too, but Jaffe's concubine is somewhat less well defined if more insidious (she keeps coming back into a room she has just left to collect the Czar's toy soldiers: in fact, at one point, Jaffe has his army march inside the Palace because of the rain and they actually seem like a pack of toy soldiers!); incidentally, while one would normally scoff at the prospect of a "half-wit" having a girlfriend (there is no suggestion that she was so devoted to him merely out of a desire to secure her own place on the throne), we only need to remember that Nero had Poppea and Hitler his Eva Braun!
The early montage showing the oppressive behavior of past Russian rulers like Ivan The Terrible takes full advantage of its Pre-Code vintage: one is shown repeatedly and ruthlessly beheading his prisoners; another is gleefully ringing a bell that has a prisoner tied upside down inside it!; and a bevy of nude girls are being tortured! To alleviate the gloom somewhat, we have the odd but effective instance of comic relief: the old Empress grabbing a turkey leg from the banquet table instead of her sceptre and Jaffe is shown drilling a hole in Dresser's bedchamber to look for Dietrich! Indeed, there is here much less reliance on political machinations (making copious use of rather stilted intertitles to further the plot) and soul-searching this time around on the part of Peter III. Even so, the constant barrage of music on the soundtrack – including such instantly recognizable classical pieces as Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries" and Tchaikovsky's "1812" – really adds to the authentic recreation of a past era marked by decadence and violence. Interestingly, some of the crowd scenes were lifted from Ernst Lubitsch's THE PATRIOT (1928) at a time when that director was Head Of Production at the studio!; since that one is presumed lost (outside of a theatrical trailer readily accessible on "You Tube"), it is ironic that the film only survives officially in this 'undignified' manner! Given Sternberg's predilection for shooing in a studio, it is possible that Dietrich's involvement in a film not directed by him at this point, i.e. Rouben Mamoulian's THE SONG OF SONGS (1933), was due to the time it took to construct the elaborate sets!
The print utilized for the Criterion edition I watched is, sadly, quite weak and grainy in spots: one hopes that this film will one day be revisited on BluRay after having undergone the extensive restoration required; the film's running time is officially given in film tomes as 110 minutes but it runs for 105 here (possibly due to the 4% PAL speed-up factor) – even if the IMDb states it should be just 104!
greatly linking Marlene Dietrich to Czarist Russia
Author: wvisser-leusden from Netherlands
9 July 2014
First: linking Marlene Dietrich to the somewhat dark, cruel & mysterious atmosphere of 18th century czarist Russia provides a truly great edge to 'The Scarlet Empress'.
Second: in 1934 Dietrich was already in her thirties, which clearly shows off in this film. Even more so, she does not make any attempt to hide her true age. It doesn't matter, though, for I estimate that Dietrich's flawless performance adds at least an extra 20%.
With ingredients like these, 'The Scarlet Empress' cannot fail to turn out greatly. Shot in the best technique's of the 1930s, this truly is a film that will last forever.
17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
While cold and emotionally distant, it still is an amazing film due to its artistic vision
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
15 January 2007
This is an absolutely amazing film to watch. I have seen several other collaborations between director Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich and I think this is the best--mostly due to it being like a giant painting or tapestry that was almost mesmerizing. The film is a rather odd look at a brief period of the life of Catherine the Great of Russia. It follows her from her betrothal (when she is a Germanic princess) to her ultimately killing her husband and assuming the throne--the space of just a few years).
During the entire picture, what stood out were the amazing sets. The film begins with some very graphic torture chamber scenes that are definitely "Pre-Code" in that they are so frightening and because of the copious amounts of gratuitous female nudity. While this never could have been allowed once the stronger Production Code was implemented around 1935, it is a captivating and bizarre introduction to the movie and it certainly got your attention!! Then, throughout the film, the sets were magnificent and very twisted--almost like they had been inspired by a combination of LSD, Jean Cocteau's version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch! Twisted and grotesque anthropomorphic statues, banisters, candelabras, chairs, etc. grace practically every scene inside the palace--making it look like a combination of Hell and whimsy!! You really just have to see it all to believe it. What was also amazing was how Paramount was able to construct all this without the production bankrupting the company!!! While the dialog and acting is fine, they take a definite backseat to the sets. It's very obvious that Von Sternberg really wasn't trying to humanize the characters or shed too much light on the life of Catherine--it was really more of a work of performance art. And if you accept it as this and NOT an absolutely true recounting of the life of Catherine, then you will be in for a treat.
As for the historical side of the film, there has long been some disagreement about the coup and subsequent execution of Catherine's husband. While it is almost undoubtedly true she orchestrated it (after all, they made her their leader after Peter's death), what isn't so certain is the character of Peter. Some accounts have described him as half-witted or insane (exactly how he's shown in the film) but others doubt if this was exactly the case--it could have just been propaganda used by Catherine to justify her actions. Plus, when Peter died, some apparently reported this was of natural causes and not murder! Considering everything, though, the film had to portray Peter III some way and the evil half-wit was an enjoyable choice--as Sam Jaffe looked so crazed and made the part come alive with his insane-looking eyes and wonderful delivery! Dietrich herself was also very good (perhaps due to her not being so "artificial-looking" like she was in some of her other films due to excessive makeup), but her performance was definitely overshadowed by the sets and Jaffe
By the way, I originally gave this film a very respectable score of 8. However, after seeing "The Rise of Catherine the Great" (which was made the exact same year and covered the exact same material), I saw that this Dietrich film was a lot better by comparison. I especially think that Dietrich and Jaffe were a much better Peter and Catherine than Elisabeth Bergner and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in the other film.
