Wordiezett So much average

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Micransix Crappy film

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Dalbert Pringle Boasting a supporting cast of 1000 extras - 1934's "The Scarlet Empress" was, to me, nothing but a stuffy, boring, pretentious costume drama which was clearly intended as a vehicle to glorify Marlene Dietrich and present her as a serious dramatic actress.Apparently based on the actual diary entries of Catherine II - I thought that (under the heavy-handed direction of that lunatic eccentric, Josef Von Sternberg) ""The Scarlet Empress" (with its million dollar budget), pretty much, amounted to being nothing but a total mockery of Russian history from start to finish.This was clearly one of those films that (because it took itself so bloody serious) ended up being downright laughable, in the long run.*Note* - As expected - Marlene Dietrich does her celebrated "man-drag" shtick in this picture, as well. (Ho-hum!)

elvircorhodzic The historical drama about the life of Catherine the Great. Director and screenwriter were certain to follow historical facts. Historical freedoms in this case is not pure fiction. Pronounced humor and love life at the court confirmed this fact. I am afraid that this film sort of response from Marlene Dietrich to film Queen Christina.THE SCARLET EMPRESS is a bit bizarre and extravagant movie with highlighted specific humor and a touch of sexual intrigue. At the heart of the story is that Catherine II very well played by the ravishing Marlene Dietrich. I'm not too thrilled with the story, but I think that the atmosphere and the scenery are great. I liked this wacko world who like to live a nightmare in grotesque environment full of menacing shadows, a bunch of candles and skeleton. Costumes really leaves an impression. Maybe I'm too long looking at Marlene. Von Sternberg me at times sympathetic, because all lots of attention paid to the lead actress. I understand that the film is about "her" character. It is hard to understand anything, if in a scene missing Dietrich.Marlene Dietrich (Catherine II – The Great) behaves as if it does not affect overall madness. It is a world that is untouchable for other characters. She's beautiful and erotic to the limits of madness. Sex games and erotic expressions are fields in which Marlene Dietrich dominates.John Davis Lodge (Alexei), Sam Jaffe (Peter III) and Louise Dresser (Empress Elizaveta) are observed and presented their roles very good. I believe that this is in addition to Marlene was difficult.The Scarlet Empress is open and suggestive film in which Marlene Dietrich picked all the attention through his portrayal of Queen Catherine the Great a beautiful and innocent girl with large eyes in the beginning, and later the great seductress who comes across her bed to the throne.

chaos-rampant Historically speaking, the film must count as one of the grossest abominations in a Hollywood which for the longest time envisioned anything laying east and south of the Danube as uncharted, barbarous darkness. Young Catherine arrives in Russia practically a child, only to be greeted by the scoldings of another overbearing mother, an Orthodox patriarch perched beneath an ungodly gargoyle, and a half-mad imbecile for a husband.The whole of the Russian court turns out to be not much different from the vile stories of atrocity she was narrated to as a child, one after another a series of machinations at the hands of the half-mad.But of course history was never the purpose for Sternberg, these stories at the beginning of the film he visualizes in the manner of pages from a book. So a fiction malformed from history, a book of images, ostensibly based on the diaries of the real person, in turn a history malformed from the real thing, with Dietrich stage center, shining, radiant.It was always Dietrich that validated film for Sternberg, the image of seductive beauty that could seduce beauty from the camera. But in several ways, I feel that Sternberg deteriorated upon joining up with her much like the hapless professor in Blue Angel. His art was tortured before, anguished with emotion, but since Dietrich it seemed to be solely consumed by her at the expense of all else.Nowhere is this more evident than here, no pretense about it anymore. Dietrich is quite literally queen, destined to be, and the whole thing around her merely provides the tortured circumstances for the scene of triumph. There is so much cacophony when she does finally triumph that it makes you think Sternberg has finally gone unhinged from so much pained adoration, that he doesn't quite know when to separate one feverish fantasy from his own. A cavalcade storms inside the palace and up the expansive staircase, a bell rings, ringing bells across the country, crowds rejoice, that were earlier silently praying, and Dietrich is finally ushered on shoulders into the church swarmed with banners on all sides to be crowned empress. Ride of the Valkyries clangs away in bombast for the duration.But this is the thing that strikes the most vividly, the crowning luxurious decadence of the whole enterprise. Even in the grip of what seems like lovestruck paroxysm, Sternberg could envision farther than most at the time. And when he failed, he failed more spectacularly than anyone could, in the most interesting ways to see.It baffles. It exhilarates with the sheer monstrosity of the caricature. It overwhelms any sensibility that is fine, any sense of good taste. You will never see more a outrageous depiction of an Orthodox church ever, the frescoes of saints bordering on a surreal that is blasphemous. Or more styrofoam gargoyles in one studio lot palace.So the frame is overflowing with anguished, fiendish luxury; but everything that is grossly portrayed here, was actually taking place on that studio lot. Whatever was going on in 18th century Russia, at least this thing was actually happening in Hollywood, that would go to such lengths to envision and stage such a dazzling darkness. A cavalcade was made to storm up a staircase. And there was this woman at the center, flickering before the camera like the flame of the candle she holds at one scene, finally lighting up the place.So it is apt to recast the whole thing as Dietrich's journey, mirrored from the other, from her faraway home into the court of a foreign country, with every spotlight on her, every male pair of eyes.The first part is sourced out as a kind of Alice in Wonderland; the girl enters a strange world, apprehensive, fearful, a world that would reduce her to size, where she must fit through doors too big, wait for the queen or lose her head, finally descend into a rabbit hole and come out the other end the mother of a heir.But in the second part she becomes the Dietrich we know and have come to see conquer with fierce beauty, the Lola that first broke hearts in Blue Angel; the whole film around her transforms into the restless dream that men were dreaming about her. The idea is that she becomes that dream, operating the image from inside. It is not a good film all else considered, the overcooked bombast, the intertitles that never shy away from revealing the full implications of the most obvious detail, but it's a mess you should see, just for how madly passionate.

lugonian THE SCARLET EMPRESS (Paramount, 1934), directed by Josef Von Sternberg, based on the diary of Catherine the Great, as arranged by Manuel Komaroff, reunites its director with his star queen, Marlene Dietrich, for the first time since BLONDE VENUS (Paramount, 1932). For their fifth collaboration, this ranks one of the most stylish, visual experience ever presented. Capitalizing on the current trend of historical spectacles based on various crown heads of Europe, ranging from Charles Laughton's Academy Award winning performance in Alexander Korda's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (London Films, 1933) to Greta Garbo's take as QUEEN Christina (MGM, 1933) of Sweden, THE SCARLET EMPRESS goes a step further having Dietrich's Catherine the Great competing with Elisabeth Bergner's title role in Korda's own interpretation of THE RISE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT (London Films, 1934). With the grand scale Korda-Bergner production no doubt an astounding theatrical success, it's THE SCARLET EMPRESS that stands out with its most outlandish flavor of bizarre extravagance.Imitating the basic elements of a silent film epic through its continuous underscoring of classical compositions by Peter Tchaikovsky and Felix Mendelssohn, and numerous inter-titles preceding upcoming scenes of events opening with: "About two centuries ago, in a corner of the kingdom of Prussia, lived a little princess - chosen by destiny to become the greatest monarch in her time - Tsarina of all Russias - the ill-famed Messalina of the North," before its two minute prologue introducing seven-year-old Catherine, nee Sophia Frederica (Maria Sieber) of Germany, in bed being examined by her doctor. With her hopes on becoming a toe dancer, her mother has other plans for this future queen. Next scene reveals the adult Sophia (Marlene Dietrich), swinging on a vine surrounded by other young girls, later meeting with her elders with the news of her forthcoming journey to Russia accompanied by her aunt, Princess Johanna (Olive Tell), and young escort, Count Alexei (John Lodge) for an arranged marriage with her future husband. Upon their arrival, Sophia is met by the outspoken Empress Elizabeth (Louise Dresser), who not only renames her "Catherine," but demands the heir to the throne to be a boy. Catherine's girlish dreams for a tall, dark and handsome husband are shattered with the meeting of Grand Duke Peter Fyodorovitch (Sam Jaffe), a royal half-wit, whom she is to marry. The marriage goes on as planned at the Old Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, but the honeymoon is practically over as the couple sleeps in separate quarters. In due time, Catherine is slowly driven to affairs with soldiers of the Russian Army, while Grand Duke Peter and his mistress, Countess Elizabeth (Ruthelma Stevens), plot for Catherine's murder.In the "cast of 1,000 players," only a few are credited with their names in lower case lettering, including C. Aubrey Smith as Prince August; Gavin Gordon (Gregory Orloff); Jameson Thomas (Lieutenant Ovtsyn); Edward Van Sloan (Herr Wagner); Jane Darwell (Madame Cardell). The one billed simply as "Maria," is Maria Sieber, Dietrich's real-life daughter, assuming her role as a child. For Dietrich's performance, her role of Catherine resembles of the one played in Rouben Mamoulian's THE SONG OF SONGS (1933) through her interpretation of a shy, soft-spoken innocent convincingly transformed to a strong-willed lady of the world during its second half of the story. Although there's much criticism in regards to Sam Jaffe's portrayal of Grand Duke Peter bearing the physical manner of comedian Harpo Marx, from white wig to wide eyes and hideous smile, Jaffe (in motion picture debut) appears to be more believable with this characterization than the much handsomer portrayal given by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the aforementioned British made version. Had THE SCARLET EMPRESS been filmed as a satire rather than an epic spectacle, how amusing, or embarrassing, this production might have been with Harpo's Grand Duke Peter chasing after Catherine and her ladies-in-waiting throughout the castle. Due to her seemingly more American acting style, Louise Dresser comes across as the miscast Empress Elizabeth. While Von Sternberg might have acquired the services of natural Russian born actress as Maria Ouspenskaya, who would have been perfect as she was in the story about Napoleon (Charles Boyer) in CONQUEST (MGM, 1937 starring Greta Garbo. John Lodge, whose acting style and strong deep voice predating that of future actors Orson Welles or Van Heflin, blends in perfectly with his character of Count Alexi, and nothing more.Often compared to the directorial style of silent director Erich Von Stroheim with use of camera capturing the slightest detail, Von Stroheim participation in spectacle finds his actors, Dietrich included, competing with reproduction of 16th century Russian exteriors, sets (compliments of Hans Dreier), costumes, devilish plaster of Paris gargoyles, nude statutes, and thousands of lighted candles. The Von Sternberg method of super imposing, tracking shots over guests sitting by dinner tables and soft focus photography (by Bert Glennon) of Dietrich's facial expressions are evident and expected. Catherine's clattering up the palace steps on her white horse and climatic finish through "1812 Overture" scoring are justly famous.Revived often on television through much of the 1970s and 80s prior its distribution on video cassette and DVD, THE SCARLET EMPRESS, has the distinction of being was the only Dietrich/Von Sternberg collaboration ever presented on American Movie Classics (1992-93). In later years, has turned up occasionally here it premiered in 2002 on Turner Classic Movies. Possibly Catherine the Great never lived such a life as depicted on screen but Dietrich of Paramount certainly lived out her role as the Scarlet Empress. (***)