Die Favoritin

This film has all the trappings of a B movie.

The costuming is remarkably bad (there's tulle and lame everywhere), the acting is hokey, and the writing a little less than mediocre.

But I _love_ this film nonetheless. I own it and watch it every now and again. I enjoy the cheesiness, and it's best enjoyed with a friend or two over drinks and hearty commentary and giggles. It's a wonderful orientalist film with glitter and glam mixed with quite a bit of fantasy.

It is based on a true story, and I am surprised every time to see it was actually filmed at Topkapi palace.

It's 1784 France. Aimée Dubucq de Rivéry chafes under the strict nuns. She is too independent and her uncle sends her back to the nuns. Pirates capture her ship and she is kidnapped to Algiers ending up in the Ottoman Sultan's harem. She resists being renamed and the scheming by Sineperver (Maud Adams). Sultan Abdul Hamid (F. Murray Abraham) picks her and she refuses. When he offers to not sleep with her, she relents. She becomes his favorite and gives him another heir. Sineperver's son Mustafa is in line to be the next Sultan and she sends an assassin to kill Aimée's son. The Sultan gives her Mahmud to adopt. The Janissaries are restless for war against the Russians but they are outmatched without modern weapons.

This is a strange movie. It's half exploitative melodramatic romance. It's also a period piece historical drama. It's reminiscent of a pulpy romance novel. Surprisingly, this has a couple of interesting veteran actors. On the other hand, the lead is a young amateur although she's not the problem. Amber O'Shea definitely has model good looks. She has spunk and that is charismatic enough. The production is lower value but the locations are pretty good. This is cheese but I must admit that it's memorable cheese.

I have to disagree with the former review. While it has been a long time since I have seen this particular movie. I can think of far worse ways to spend an hour and 45 minutes!

It is however, a movie that has a hard time fitting into a category. As an historical movie, it is highly fictionalized (although it is based on a real person who did in fact bring Christianity to the royal family of, I believe, Turkey.) It has too much gore to really be a romance.

As for the acting, I really liked F. Murray Abraham's performance. Amber O'Shea could be seen as rather Lackluster, but I generally prefer an understated performance. Ron Dortch, as Tulip, was really good.

One final word of warning. While I saw nothing in this movie that was not included to further the storyline, I did recommend this to a friend who was highly offended by the sexual nature of a few scenes. But hey, the movie was about a young European girl who finds herself married to a Turkish Aga, and conceives his heir. What can you expect!

What I saw was a throwback to cliché-cluster flicks of decades ago, but the soundtrack puts it firmly in the eighties.

It is thumpingly and enormously awful, as wretched and phony a film as could be conceived. Tittering harem ladies a'bathing, stern Turks delivering script bits from the 100 Most Popular Stock Lines for the genre. They might as well have gone beyond the scattered skin peeks to a fuller soft-core intention -- all pillow-plush and pleasures in the sultan's palace, because that's already the quality/ambiance/performance level of much of this thin 'n cheesy production.

The producers may have scored the perfectly suited shooting location, but much else in the movie seems to be reaching for the furthest reaches of inauthenticity.

Admissions: There is amusement, even delight, in encountering something so consummately lame, in wondering who could work on it and think for a moment this embarrassment should be taken seriously. I really did laugh out loud a few times at this painfully acted, double-dreadfully written, obliviously directed caricature. Maybe I WOULD view a portion of it again, preferably with someone else. "Look!...watch this! Watch!"

And..I only made it through the early half. Turned away easily without even the tiniest rhinestone of regret. (A bug buzzing by in the living room could be diversion enough from this bungle.) Could be...could be that when it moved deeper into violence and intrigue, into dramatic seizures(!) of fate and steering of history, it took a turn toward something more engaging and more plausibly presented. Could happen...right?

The acting is not so good. There is little action, but the it is a fantastic, yet true, story and Amber O'Shea is a knock out in this film. There is brief nudity. Amber's costumes reveal her chest in see through fabric and one of the slave girls is topless.

Story takes place at the end of the 19th century. A French girl is kidnapped and sold into slavery. There is lots of dressing and partial undressing of Amber and plenty of romance and love - Stockholm Syndrome style. It's one of those B movies that would probably be unimpressive if not for a couple of impressive elements that are perhaps only special to the viewer. Poor acting. Poor directing. Poor action. Not even any sex... Yet it is a touching little movie.