The Scarlet Empress
Our Rating: 3
- Rated
- TBC
- Genre
- History
- Year Of Release
- 1934
The bizarre life of Russian monarch Catherine The Great. Historical drama starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef von Sternburg
AVG User Rating: (1 VOTES)
Review
Marlene Dietrich's penultimate collaboration with Josef von Sternberg is the most extravagant of all their seven sensuous, bizarre, unnaturalistic and pictorially splendid movies.
The glamorously lit Marlene as Catherine the Great of Russia, married to a lunatic prince (pop-eyed Jaffe) takes a lover (Lodge) and becomes pregnant by him. In the final, spectacular, high-camp scene, she rides her favourite horse into the palace and up the grand staircase to accept the crown. Tracking through the marvellous Hans Dreier sets, full of candles, bells and icons, creating a fantasy 18th-century Russia, is Glennon's soft-focus camera. Dietrich's own daughter plays young Catherine.
The glamorously lit Marlene as Catherine the Great of Russia, married to a lunatic prince (pop-eyed Jaffe) takes a lover (Lodge) and becomes pregnant by him. In the final, spectacular, high-camp scene, she rides her favourite horse into the palace and up the grand staircase to accept the crown. Tracking through the marvellous Hans Dreier sets, full of candles, bells and icons, creating a fantasy 18th-century Russia, is Glennon's soft-focus camera. Dietrich's own daughter plays young Catherine.
Verdict
Not the most successful of Dietrich and von Sternburg's collaborations but interesting nonetheless.
Image Gallery
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Credits
- Actor
- John Lodge
- Marlene Dietrich
- Maria Sieber
- Louise Dresser
- C Aubrey Smith
- Sam Jaffe
- Director
- Josef Von Sternberg
- Photographer
- Bert Glennon
- Screen Writer
- Manuel Komroff
- Writer (Book)
- Catherine II
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