Alec B
Historical accuracy be damned. The surreal imagery, camp performances, weird little comedic bits, and Dietrich are the reasons to see this.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/09/24
Full Review
Matthew B
In The Scarlet Empress, the story of the rise to power of Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's film deviates so far from history that it is not such a biopic as a fantasy about the life of the Russian Empress. I doubt many viewers emerge from a viewing of The Scarlet Empress with any detailed understanding of the events that took place in Russia during those years, and nor should they.
The film marked the high point of the collaboration between director Josef von Sternberg and his leading actress (and lover), Marlene Dietrich. In another sense it was a low point. The relationship between von Sternberg and Dietrich was beginning to crack, and The Scarlet Empress, the sixth film that they had made together, was an expensive box office flop.
If public tastes were changing, this was not because the films of von Sternberg and Dietrich were becoming stale. On the contrary, The Scarlet Empress is perhaps the most inventive of the seven films that Dietrich made with von Sternberg. It may not be great history, but it is a camp and kitsch classic, played with an emphasis on sly humour and cynical fun. It may be style over substance (von Sternberg called it "a relentless excursion into style"), but with style like this, who needs substance?
There is indeed an excess of style in The Scarlet Empress, and perhaps the relentless imagery may have some viewers screaming for mercy by the end. To compensate for small sets, von Sternberg crowds the scenes with furniture, décor and camera trickery.
The camera work and editing is fluid, and includes careful use of montage, superimposition, aerial angles, long tracking shots and a meticulous attention to detail (to give two examples, there are the dogs that start up and run away when the dinner guests smash their glasses on the floor, and there is the diner who bites off the nose of a pig's head).
Of course the real Russia of this period was not nearly as backward as von Sternberg portrays it. Why does von Sternberg wish us to form the view that Russia was a brutal and primitive country? The answer, I suspect, is Communism. While the Cold War had not yet begun, the West was already afraid of this new Bolshevik state. Von Sternberg had portrayed Russia in a negative light in an earlier film, The Last Command. Here a corrupt and oppressive Czarist regime gives way to the savagery of mob rule as the Communists seize power.
The Scarlet Empress paints a similar picture of a country in which violence is commonplace. In an early montage, von Sternberg shows a wide range of atrocities committed by earlier leaders, including torture, rape, whipping, burning people alive, and using one man as the clapper in a bell.
There are many scenes of bells ringing in the film, perhaps intended to remind us of this early scene, and to ensure that we associate Russia with this kind of cruelty. Also of interest are the brief glimpses of bare-breasted women that von Sternberg somehow got past the censors.
Von Sternberg places an intense focus is on Marlene Dietrich. He has little interest in crowd scenes or other actors, and saves his best compositions for her. The camera makes love to Dietrich. Her face is always well-lit, and von Sternberg offers plenty of flattering close-ups. Sometimes her face is viewed through a veil. Is there a symbolic point here? I suspect not. I imagine that von Sternberg simply thought that she looked fetching while wearing a veil.
Nonetheless there is always a sense of utter absurdity running through the film, and von Sternberg does not spare Dietrich from this. Her clothes are a bizarre mass of furs, feather and jewellery, and each outfit becomes more ridiculous than the last one. Von Sternberg has fun with one of Dietrich's outfits. When Catherine wishes to hide a pendant from sight, she finds she is struggling to do so because her elaborate outfit has no pockets.
Of course the actors in general are dressed in bizarre clothing. Thick layers of clothing cover them. Tall men stalk the set wearing oversized hats. Somehow the actors in the film are always buried under their clothes, or dwarfed by the large and overcrowded sets. The palace doors are huge, impractical edifices that require two men, or six struggling women, to open and close them.
As for the sets employed by Josef von Sternberg, has there ever been anything this outrageous on our screens before or since? Everywhere there are candle-holders in the shape of contorted gargoyles that look as if they are being tortured, and each gargoyle holds just one candle. A skeleton hangs over the banquet table, and the chairs of the council room are adorned with images of giant figures holding their heads in their hands.
At the heart of this peculiar imagery is the Queen of Kitsch herself, Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich fully relishes the sexually suggestive dialogue and perverse antics of her character. While Peter enjoys playing with his toy soldiers, Catherine prefers to play with actual soldiers.
When Catherine takes time to inspect her troops, it is not their weaponry, deportment or discipline that interests her. Meeting the night guard, she slinkily suggests, "It must be cold at night… sometimes". As Catherine remarks, "I think I have weapons far more powerful than any Russian state machine."
I am not entirely sure how von Sternberg managed to get away with putting so many perverse and blatantly sexual scenes in a film that was close on the time when the Hays Code was seeking to remove immoral content from cinema. I am only glad that he did. The Scarlet Empress is a deliriously cheeky slab of pseudo-history, and more fun than 50 conventional biopics put together.
I wrote a longer appreciation of The Scarlet Empress on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2021/10/22/the-scarlet-empress-1934/
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
By all accounts Catherine the Great was one remarkable woman. The Queen Consort of Czar Peter III of Russia, she got the throne from him in a palace coup d'etat and ruled for 33 years. She was also a woman of some lusty sexual appetites just like the woman who portrays her in The Scarlet Empress. It's what distinguishes The Scarlet Empress from the Alexander Korda production of Catherine The Great that starred Elizabeth Bergner and came out the same time.
Both tell the same story from young Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst chosen as a bride for the Russian Tsarevitch. But Bergner plays her almost as an innocent though you see traces of the lusty woman Catherine became. Marlene Dietrich loses her innocence and you see a woman who used sex to get her way whether it was political gain or sexual satisfaction that she wasn't getting from the imbecile who was her husband.
As for Czar Peter, though Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. gives a fine performance, we see a psychotic Czar in him. Sam Jaffe is far closer to the truth, the childlike imbecile who was overwhelmed he didn't measure up in the bedroom or the throne room. This film was Jaffe's screen debut, a far cry from Dr. Reifenschneider in The Asphalt Jungle or the High Lama of Shangri-La, all three very different parts.
In fact historians and scholars debate to this day whether Paul who succeeded his mother was Peter's child or was sired by one of Catherine's many lovers.
Gavin Gordon and John Davis Lodge play two of her lovers. Lodge was a man like Ronald Reagan who made it big in two different careers. A member of THE Lodge family of Massachusetts, the younger brother of Henry Cabot Lodge, Ike's UN Ambassador, this Lodge left the law for acting and then after Navy service in World War II became a Congressman, Governor of Connecticut, and Ambassador to Spain.
To me it's tossup between Flora Robson in Catherine the Great and Louise Dresser as to who the better Empress Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the daughter of Peter the Great, aunt of Sam Jaffe. Her appetites were as big as Catherine's, but her ruthlessness somewhat less. Like Elizabeth I of England, she never married and produced an heir to the throne, but also no one bothered to keep up any fiction about the Russian Elizabeth being a virgin.
With some footage from Ernst Lubitsch's silent classic The Patriot, Joseph Von Sternberg crafted one of the better efforts from his collaboration with Marlene Dietrich. He also drove the Paramount Pictures bean counters absolutely crazy by going over budget. The Scarlet Empress was expensive and looks expensive. Von Sternberg spent Paramount's money in a way they could only justify with Cecil B. DeMille.
Von Sterberg made good use of music to cover many stretches of no dialog. And after seven years of talking pictures, he also used title cards and effectively when 99% of films had dropped them for good.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
In von Sternberg's Russia, no individual of focus isn't foregrounded by a flag, or some mesh, or part of a strange statue, or Rublev-esque religious illustrations, or just good old fashioned poles or candle sticks. This is so often the case in all of these films, but this time... it's nothing short of breathtaking. And also, in its stoney splendor, exhausting. Completely palace-bound, there's a righteously suffocating sensation about The Scarlet Empress.
The wardrobe is elaborate to the hilt, right on up to the impeccably fuzzy hats. (Travis Banton again, unleashed). There are at least too many people by one-third in at any given royal gathering scene, ornately jamming the frame from all sides with their fancy hair, their hoop dresses, their military accoutrements, their precision placements, the decor and the decorum. This is the filmmaker at the height of his powers, truly cut loose and untethered from the reality of the story he's chosen to depict and any studio-mandated boundaries. May horses clop over those things, twice each day and once again on Sunday!!
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
matthew d
A sweeping epic with Sternberg's directorial majesty and Marlene's regal grace.
Josef von Sternberg's historical romance drama The Scarlet Empress (1932) is a breathtaking epic that chronicles Russian Empress Catharine The Great's rise to power. Josef von Sternberg and Sam Winston's swift editing tells the fascinating story of Catherine II in a brief 104 minute run-time. Catherine II's memoirs were the source used, so the information is as accurate, if only from her perspective, as you're going to get of this time period in Russia alongside writer Manuel Komroff's dazzling screenplay. All the intrigue of Russia's courts including infidelity and insanity are pushed front row for our entertainment. The fancy classical music pounds away with thunderous drums and intense string sections that ensure The Scarlet Empress impresses on an artful note. The Scarlet Empress features some of Josef von Sternberg's most creative visual directing with montages of monarchies and quick coups to enjoy.
Bert Glennon's cinematography is beautiful with these magnificent wide shots of hundreds of extras, to cute mini models of Moscow, and even some matte paintings for the background. Hans Dreier's art direction makes Moscow look especially cold and isolating in large palace halls covered in wooden clocks and stone statues. Travis Banton's glorious costumes are still resplendent for Marlene Dietrich ranging from lavish ball gowns to a stunning white general outfit for Dietrich that is really neat. All Banton's costumes help make Marlene look all the more regal and enchanting.
Marlene Dietrich herself is exquisite as Catharine II in The Scarlet Empress as she starts out sympathetic as the young innocent girl Princess Sophia Frederica learning about all the debauchery and hedonism of Russia's aristocracy and monarchy. She quickly learns to play the political game with expressive glares, meaningful hand waves, and daring wit with her sharp tongue. Marlene's heavy German accent is really wonderful to hear alongside all the pomp and intrigue in The Scarlet Empress. This is easily one of her finest roles as she's confident, commanding, and endearing all in one complex leading lady role.
John Lodge is quite interesting as the seducer Count Alexei with his suave, if too imposing manner, that all works excellently to portray him as a sexist womanizer out for his own ends. Sam Jaffe is hilarious as the insane Grand Duke Peter with his sudden bursts of anger and strange mutterings. He can even be threatening until you see Marlene Dietrich thoroughly dismiss his threats with a powerful smirk.
In all, Marlene Dietrich really was one of the greatest actresses of all time. I love Marlene Dietrich and hope audiences continue to discover her grace and glory in The Scarlet Empress.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
william d
Excellent historical drama, lavishly produced and wonderfully directed.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
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