Katharina die Große

...from producer Alexander Korda and director Paul Czinner. Elisabeth Bergner stars as the naive young German princess who is arranged to marry Peter II (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), the heir to the Russian throne. Peter is a moody, petulant brat, long suffering the animosity of the reigning Empress Elisabeth (Flora Robson). While it appears that Catherine and Peter may just be what the other needed, soon Peter's attentions wander, and Catherine sets out to gain the throne for herself.

It was interesting comparing this to the same year's The Scarlet Empress, which I just rewatched recently. That film is far superior, one of the best of the year, but this one isn't bad, either. The biggest weakness of this version is Bergner, a very peculiar actress in both look and demeanor. She was a major star of the Austrian and German stage world, and she moved to London to escape the Nazis. She had high profile roles in this, Escape Me Never (1935) which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and the Shakespeare adaptation As You Like It in 1936, opposite a young Olivier. She fades in the shadow of Marlene Dietrich in the role, and Bergner fails to convincingly imbue her with the strength needed for the later scenes.

The largest difference between the two is the depiction of Peter. In The Scarlet Empress, he's played by Sam Jaffe as a jabbering man-child barely able to operate in the civilized world. Conversely, Fairbanks plays him as a spoiled rich kid, but one with shades of maturity trying to break out, and he also adds a romantic attraction that Jaffe couldn't on his best day. The great Flora Robson is a treat here, just as spoiled and temperamental as her nephew, and she gives the equally revered Louise Dresser in the other film some stiff competition for who played it best. This version features very good costume and set work, but again, the sets can't match the grotesqueries in the other film nor that film's exquisite cinematography.

Alexander Korda took the audience back to 18th century Russia to offer his account of a timorous, quaking German teenager, who rose to become one of the most powerful, consequential monarchs in world history. He did this a mere 14 years after American women gained their suffrage with passage of the 19th Amendment. Elizabeth Bergner does a fine job in the title role of someone raised since childhood to marry Grand Duke Peter (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), as directed by his childless aunt, Empress Elizabeth (Flora Robson). The sets and costumes are impressive as is the brisk 94 minute account, which may inspire further research.

The alternative title "The Rise of Catherine the Great" is much more accurate since the picture ends with her getting the throne.

The costumes and sets are Grade A Hollywood (compliment).

Flora Robson (Empress Elisabeth) has the best lines and delivers them impressively. Elisabeth Bergner (Catherine) does well in her scenes with the Empress. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Grand Duke Peter) seems out of his depth.

This is the story of CATHERINE THE GREAT, Czarina of All The Russias. Summoned by a fierce, dying Empress to marry the Russian heir, young princess Catherine soon learns that her bridegroom is both unfaithful & insane. After the death of the old Empress, Catherine's danger increases and she must learn to be very cunning in order to save herself from her unpredictable royal husband...

Vienna-born Elisabeth Bergner, in her first English-language film, is radiant as the obscure German princess who would become the most powerful woman in Russian history. Hers is an excellent performance in a difficult role, where it would have been easy to be upstaged by the other, flashier, characters. As Grand Duke Peter - later Czar Peter III - Douglas Fairbanks Jr. behaves like a homicidal Hamlet, all moodiness & flares of deadly temper. He makes an interesting effort to create a charmer out of a pathetic man who was obviously a maniac.

(Actual history relates that Catherine & Peter were married 17 years and had 3 children before Peter's ascension to the throne - a time period necessary for Catherine to build her strength, but which the movie makers ignore.)

Miss Bergner & Mr. Fairbanks are given an excellent supporting cast. Dame Flora Robson is wonderful as the Empress Elizabeth. Suspicious, domineering & rather wanton, Dame Flora makes the viewer want to know the story of this noteworthy monarch, overshadowed in history by her colorful successor. Celebrated stage actress Dame Irene Vanbrugh makes a rare screen appearance as Catherine's mother.

The small role of Peter's French valet is performed by Sir Gerald du Maurier, one of the great English actor-managers of the early days of the century. In this, his penultimate role & a few months from his death, Sir Gerald had become largely forgotten by his once enormous public. He gives his few lines great dignity. In his autobiography, Fairbanks relates that upon arriving at the studio prior to filming and before the other cast members, he discovered that he had been assigned a large dressing room, whilst Sir Gerald had been given a tiny one. Deciding this was not a proper way to treat the legendary actor, Fairbanks switched names on the doors. Sir Gerald soon arrived, sweeping majestically into the larger room, as if this was only natural...

It is fascinating to compare this very fine historical drama with Marlene Dietrich's SCARLET EMPRESS, also produced in 1934.

This is the first of 6 films I intend to watch about the famous Russian sovereign (albeit of German origins) as part of the Josef von Sternberg retrospective, whose masterpiece THE SCARLET EMPRESS – from the same year – also deals with her. It was obviously intended as the British response (through renowned producer Alexander Korda) of the afore-mentioned Paramount release; ironically, the latter had been made – as a vehicle for Marlene Dietrich – in the wake of the classic Greta Garbo title QUEEN Christina (1933)!

Even so, the result here is quite a good film taken on its own merits – though lacking the ornate visual sense and other idiosyncrasies that Sternberg deployed in his version (and which made it so fascinating to watch in the first place). In any case, this has all the virtues and faults of a typical Korda effort: low-key approach undermined by stiff production and buoyed by reliable casting. The latter sees Elizabeth Bergner – the director is her husband – in the title role (though she does well by the character on a human plane, there is little to suggest her 'great' qualities as monarch!), top-billed Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (an ambivalent characterization as he goes all-too-swiftly from being submissive to his Empress aunt through a pre-arranged marriage to tyranny: his is a valiant try, but the star's dashing looks makes this incongruity that more conspicuous!) and Flora Robson (as the ailing Empress who conspires with Catherine to depose her own unstable nephew: the distinguished actress would virtually make a career out of playing monarchs!).

Plot-wise, court intrigue (easily the more interesting aspect to the narrative) is too often swamped by romantic complications and that worst trapping of costumers i.e. archaic dancing…but, having grown up watching the Korda films on Italian TV (even if not among its very best examples, this one is solid enough), I kind of have a soft spot for them and, in fact, over the years I managed to collect virtually all of the more notable titles in that popular cycle (including the same year's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN which, coincidentally, starred Fairbanks pere!). By the way, while this one was originally released in the U.S. as THE RISE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT, it was recently issued on R1 DVD through Criterion's sister label Eclipse as part of a Korda Box Set (along with DON JUAN itself and two superb Charles Laughton vehicles – namely the Oscar-winning THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII {1933} and, arguably his masterpiece, REMBRANDT {1936}).