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A trio of unscrupulous Russian exiles Yul Brynner, Sacha Pitoeff, and Akim Tamiroff locate an amnesia victim among the flotsam and jetsam of refugees in post World War I Europe and attempt to pass her off as one of Czar Nicholas II,'s daughters, Grand Duchess Anastasia, who survived the massacre of the royal family in 1918.

The role of "Anastasia" marked Ingrid Bergman's return to an American film production after her exile from America after 1949 and she won her second Oscar with it. She runs a whole gamut of emotions from absolute despair to an assumed air of royalty. After a while Brynner and his confederates think that just maybe Ingrid's the real deal.

Of course the ultimate test is whether the Dowager Empress of Russia, Helen Hayes, accepts Ingrid as the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Although Ingrid got her Oscar, I've always felt that Hayes gives the best performance in the film.

At the age Dowager Empress Marie was in the Twenties all she had left was memories. She's from the Danish Royal House and was the widow of Alexander III and the mother of Nicholas II of Russia. Her world was turned upside down in 1917 with the Russian Revolution, not just toppled from the privileged position she had, she lost her entire family of the next generation of Romanovs to political upheaval. Hayes is back in her native Denmark, a lonely proud, but regal woman with nothing but memories. She truly becomes the Empress Marie.

Yul Brynner as General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine is one of that crowd of Russian refugees who apparently got out of Russia with more than just a skin. He's the owner of a Russian café in Paris and should be doing OK, but he's got a streak of larceny in him and a taste for high living. He's involved in bilking a whole lot of Russian exiles in a search for a Romanov heir to claim millions deposited by the late Czar for his children in the Bank of England. He's got to come up with an heir of some kind and fast. But he's a charming fellow and gives one charming performance.

Both Brynner and Director Anatole Litvak with their own Slavic backgrounds give Anastasia a real flavor of authenticity for the main characters and the Russian exile background of the film. It was shot on location in both Paris and Copenhagen and the camera work is first rate.

Anastasia became a milestone film for Ingrid Bergman and while Anna Koreff may have been a bogus Russian princess, as an actress Ingrid Bergman was always the real deal.

Not the most accurate rumination on whether or not Anna was really Anastasia, perhaps, but creamy, expensive entertainment, expertly done. Many share in the credit. There's a witty, epigrammatic screenplay by the always reliable Arthur Laurents (love that closing line, and most of Helen Hayes' dialogue) that manages to speculate perceptively on the nature-of-performance theme without beating it into the ground; an evocative Alfred Newman score that surpasses virtually anything else he did at Fox; fine CinemaScope photography that really uses the outer reaches of the screen, though it does dabble in spectacle for spectacle's sake at times; a superb Hayes (she could be theatrically actressy or resort to little-old-lady tricks in other movies, but here she's the real deal); a delightful Martita Hunt; and chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner that suggests all the underlying sexual tension without ever stating it explicitly. Also knock-your-eye-out costume design. In a time of rampant Hollywood bloat and slow-moving epics, this one moves along, without too much pretension. And Anatole Litvak's direction, while no great shakes, is nicely paced.

"Anastasia" is not a film for everyone. Those who insist on historical accuracy in films depicting real people and events would do best to stay away from the movie house altogether. "Anastasia," however, is not exactly about real people, although it does incorporate the lives of real humans and parallels with their true stories to depict a compelling "what-if" scenario and this is incredibly effective, even after DNA tests have revealed that "Anna Anderson" was definitely not Anastasia Nikolavena Romanov but instead, in all likelihood a Kashubian factory worker. (I am unaware whether she ever used the name "Anna Koreff.")

As a matter of fact, those who are familiar with the real story are in for an even grander treat. We are thrown into 1928 Paris with a brief shot of this wretched madwoman at Russian Easter, lonely and rejected outside the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and on the brink of suicide, and we are definitely prepared to think of see as the impostor that "Anna Anderson" was. Yet as the film progresses, we are shown a woman quite literally without any past. Michael Thornton opined of the real "Anna Anderson," "Somewhere along the way she lost and rejected (Kashubian factory worker Franziska) Schanzkowska. She lost that person totally and accepted completely she was this new person."

Ingrid Bergman's Anna Koreff, however, is not simply mentally lost: the world has lost her as well. It helps, perhaps, that Bergman is infinitely more convincing as a princess than as a vagabond, and the retrospective certitude of the falsity of "Anna Anderson"'s claim helps to disguise her limits at the beginning of the film when, like Yul Brynner's General Bounine, we are meant to doubt her identity. Bounine creates Koreff's new identity as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and so effectively that he begins to believe in it himself. But the entirely unsolvable questions remain:

Is Anna Koreff Anastasia? Does she actually believe she is Anastasia? More ominously, whoever she is, does she even truly and consciously remember?

This piece carefully avoids resolving these questions. On the one hand, the speed and thoroughness with which she slides into her new role is difficult to explain and impossible to deny. On the other hand, the ending (among other things) is cleverly constructed so as to expose her assumed royal identity as a construction. This is not, of course, the real story, and in the post-1900 world, such a thorough and complete break with any sort of past anchor is next to impossible. But if it happened... this may be just how it happened.

"Anastasia" is above all a beautifully designed film, full of elegance and taste. Ingrid Bergman is as beautiful as the interior architecture against which she assumes her royal identity. Again, it is not a film for everyone: many will have great difficulty connecting and sympathizing with the royal circles and personalities in this tome, but those who are able to understand pre-modern, pre-liberal (c.f. human) sensibilities will love it. Helen Hayes is absolutely perfect and inspiring as the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (it is plain to see how the real Empress was so beloved in her adopted Russia), and her chemistry with Bergman is incredible to behold. The only thing I can find to critique is that the script--and to some extent a steely wall between Bergman and Brynner--does not fully back up the eventual culmination of the relationship between Koreff and Bounine; the conclusion fits quite well thematically but is mildly illogical with regard to the plot. Still, this is a minor complaint, as "Anastasia" is first and foremost a film about identity, and one that will jar and confound its viewers time and again.

As the woman who may or may not have been the Grand Duchess Anastastia, Ingrid Bergman was welcomed back with open arms by the Hollywood fraternity that had spurned her after her affair with Roberto Rossellini and she won her second Oscar for her performance. It is a fine piece of acting in a film that is all about acting; (Bergman plays a woman called Anna Koreff who is being groomed to pass as the Grand Duchess, though it is no "Pygmalion" as she may well indeed have been the person she is being hired 'to play', though DNA tests later proved the woman in question was not Anastasia).

Yul Brynner is the Russian general who acts as her Professor Higgins and he's excellent. The same year he won an Oscar for "The King and I" but his performance here is just as good. Helen Hayes is superb as the Dowager Empress and there is a terrific turn from the great Martita Hunt as the Empress' lady-in-waiting. Anatole Litvak's direction isn't exciting in 'cinematic' terms but he knows he has a good yarn and he moves it along at a cracking pace. Between them, Bergman, Brynner and Litvak hold you in thrall.

1926 , three Russian exiles (Yul Brynner , Sacha Pitoeff, Akim Tamiroff) in Paris plot to collect ten million pounds from the Bank of England by grooming a destitute , amnesical and suicidal girl Anna Koreff (Ingrid Bergman) to pose as heir to the Russian throne . 18-year-old orphan Anna is chosen by General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) and convinces her that she could be the long lost princess and as incarnate Anastasia , the last surviving member of the Romanoff dynasty. As such , she becomes part of a scam to collect millions of rubles deposited in a foreign bank by her supposed father Nicolas , the now-dead Czar , after the fall of Russian Empire due to 1917 Revolution . While Bounin is coaching her he comes to believe she is really Anastasia . And Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (incomparable Helen Hayes) as the key to the conspiracy . In the end the Empress must decide her claim. From the sensational Broadway stage success that had audiences crying its acclaim!. The Great Ingrid Bergman as the mystery woman - Anastasia ; in her Best Actress Academy Award winning title role. WHEN THESE TWO MEET... But is she just impersonating the princess ? it is the beginning of the most amazing conspiracy the world has ever known!.The most amazing conspiracy the world has ever known, and love as it never happened to a man and woman before!

Enjoyable and attractive film concerning a strong drama freely based on facts , in which a girl disguising as a Russian princess , but the premise is the following : Is she really Anastasia ? . Based on Marcelle Maurette's play with big success in Broadway and all around the world . This is a charming movie in which Bergman returned to Hollywood, as Ingrid Bergman won her second Oscar in the title role , and deservedly so , for the classy portrayal of amnesia victim chosen by Russian expratiate Brynner to impersonate Anastasia . As Yul Brynner as the arch-conspirator is magnificent ,playing perfectly the scheming White General ; however , both actors are out-acted by Helen Hayes who steals the show giving a sensitive acting as the Grand Duches who needs to be convinced . Support cast turn in fine acting as well , such as : Martita Hunt , Akim Tamiroff , Sacha Pitoëff , Felix Aylmer , Natalie Schafer, Ivan Desny, among others.

The motion picture was competently directed by Anatole Litvak. He was born in Ukraine and stayed in Germany working . Litvak's stay in Germany was cut short by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Litvak moved to France, and directed Mayerling (1936), starring Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux. His first film in Hollywood was The Woman I Love (1937), which starred his future wife Miriam Hopkins. His experience with diverse aspects of stagecraft, as well as his fluency in four languages enabled him to competently tackle a wide variety of subjects: from sophisticated continental comedy : Tovarich (1937) to historical drama : Anastasia (1956)) and romance All This, and Heaven Too (1940). Litvak was at his best directing taut, suspenseful crime dramas, such as Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart, ; and two tough action films starring John Garfield: Castle on the Hudson (1940) and Out of the Fog (1941). Having become an American citizen in 1940, Litvak enlisted in the US army and collaborated with Frank Capra on the wartime "Why we Fight" series of documentarie s. Arguably his best film was the superb thriller ¨Sorry , wrong the number¨and the splendid psychological drama ¨The snake pit¨ (1948), Hollywood's first attempt to seriously examine the treatment of mental illness . Indeed, the film was so influential that it precipitated changes in the American mental health system . And this ¨Anastasia¨that has a high-rating : 7/10 , better than average . And it received effusive praises from critics and very good reception by the public.

What a wonderful movie!!!! They simply don't make them like this anymore. Start with the most mundane matters, the production values. The glorious wide screen aspect ratio is a delight, as is the wonderful Technicolor process, which gives us a vividness that is sorely lacking from movies nowadays. The great Alfred Newman wrote the score. Then consider the acting - first rate on all fronts. Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergmann play beautifully off each other, and Akim Tamiroff shines in the type of role he excelled in, the sweaty, seedy, slightly comic con artist. Martita Hunt is wonderful as the slightly loony lady in waiting. Helen Hayes is off the charts as the Dowager Empress, in what was evidently a comeback role for her. To watch her display her ambivalent emotions as she deals with what could be her long-lost granddaughter are a revelation. Her wordless final embrace with Anna is a ten second master class in the heights to which great acting can rise through facial expression alone. Finally, the script; it impishly refuses to engage the central question - was Anna Anderson really Anastasia, or an impostor? (FYI, she was an impostor.) By the end, the question doesn't seem to matter, so beautifully has the script dealt with things like lost hopes, wishful thinking, doubt, deceit, treachery, nostalgia for a lost world, romance, and amnesia. Don't miss this great story, beautifully told in a lavish production.

The Russian Tsar and his family were executed in 1918 during the Russian revolution. Soon afterwards, rumors spread that the youngest daughter Anastasia had escaped. It's 1928 Paris. Anna (Ingrid Bergman) is a destitute woman who claims to be Anastasia. General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) had been collecting fees to find the princess even though he doubts her existence. He sees an opportunity with Anna to collect the £10 million account from a London bank that belongs to the royal family.

Bergman is marvelous. She has the regality of royalty and she can also act downtrodden. She's great winning an Oscar. On the other hand, I don't like Yul Brynner's character. I'm not saying that his acting is bad. I just don't like this character. Brynner has a way that accentuates his harshness. I don't buy the romance. There is much more feeling with the Empress. In the end, that is the best relationship. Helen Hayes is amazing. She has so much chemistry with Bergman. This movie should be about these two women.

Sure, 'Anastasia' may be inaccurate, especially with DNA and forensics confirming the real fate of Princess Anastasia around 2007 (well after the numerous film adaptations based on the fascinating "what if" story were made, of which this is one). This said, it is a well done and interesting, if imperfect film on its own merits.

While it is not quite one of her best performances (in a career that includes her timeless performances in 'Casablanca' and 'Gaslight'), Ingrid Bergman is nonetheless exceptional in the title role, bringing equal vulnerability and dignity with intelligence, poise and nuance. People will argue whether she deserved the Oscar or not, part of it may be due to it being a comeback performance or for personal reasons but also the Academy could also have thought it that good a performance, personally have nothing against her winning while thinking that she has been better.

Yul Brynner is similarly very good, portraying Bounine with some subtle menace but also authority, wit and likability. If 'Anastasia' was released in a different year to his Oscar-winning turn in 'The King and I' (a case of him dominating that film in a more colourful role than here, and the chemistry between him and Deborah Kerr was stronger than between Bergman) he would most likely have gotten some kind of award nod (not since 1942 with Teresa Wright in 'The Pride of the Yankees' and 'Mrs Miniver' was the same actor nominated in the same year for more than one film).

One mustn't overlook Helen Hayes (also in a "comeback" performance though for different reasons to Bergman, having suspended her career due to her daughter's death and her husband's health), who gives a powerful and poignant performance as the Empress, a role so far removed from her usual roles. If there was one performance that deserved an Oscar or at least a nomination it was Hayes, and that she didn't is something of an enigma. Nor the delightful scene-stealing of Martita Hunt.

The acting is not the only reason to see 'Anastasia'. The film is very well made, with exquisitely opulent costumes that give a real sense of time and place, sumptuous scenery of London, Copenhagen and Paris and positively luminous cinematography. Alfred Newman's music score is one of his most stirring and beautifully orchestrated, in a career full of scores of both those qualities.

Much of the script is witty, literate and clever, if at times a bit rambling, largely succeeding too in putting flesh on the bones. Most of the story is gripping, helped by that the story it's based on is one of the most intriguing there is, especially telling are the scenes between Bergman and Hayes, very powerfully written, emotional and beautifully performed by both actresses.

'Anastasia' for all these great things is not perfect. The ending does feel abrupt and it felt somewhat of a cheat for the point of the story to be left ambiguous. It may have been due to being careful not to offend but this was a kind of story that deserved to have that question answered, and to be perfectly honest ambiguous/open to interpretation endings tend to generally not do it for me.

Was expecting more chemistry between Bergman and Brynner, which comes alive in the dialogue and the delivery but not on screen between them. It's all well played and competent with some wit, but one misses the fire, love and passion which was clearly meant to be there but doesn't quite come alive here. Some of the pacing drags too, with the workmanlike and sometimes impressive but too often undistinguished and too measured direction not helping.

Overall, not perfect but interesting and very well done on the whole. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Big themes, treated with a tabloid sensibility. Within its historical context the Ingrid Bergman saga is much more juicier than that of Anastasia herself. After the Rosellini scandal, this was Bergman's return to the graces of the American public. The Oscar was, without question, a reward for her personal ordeal than for her performance. (That same year Carroll Baker was nominated for Elia Kazan's "Baby Doll" Katharine Hepburn for "The Rainmaker" and Deborah Kerr for "The King and I" not to mention Nancy Kelly for "The Bad Seed". The scene between Bergman and Helen Hayes, however, makes the whole, plodding thing, very worth while.

Ingrid Bergman is truly lovely in this film and I have had a crush on Yul Brynner since I saw him in The King and I when I was about ten! To say these two are lovely together is an understatement.

This is the story of a former Russian general finding a woman to put forward as the long lost Russian Romanov princess Anastasia. The woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, is ill and down on her luck...she has even been in a mental facility. He trains her and then tries to pass her off to her grandmother.

The end of this story is slightly ambiguous...one for you to use your imagination. I am sure there is an explanation.

The story itself has some moments of brilliance...but overall it is a very melancholy story. Yul is a stern taskmaster and "Anna" spends most of the film exhausted and on the brink of taking I'll. I imagine to some this is is a very tragic love story...but I found it a little too sad overall.

I had always been intrigued by the story of Anastasia, besides watching this film, you will probably want to explore some wikipedia links for clarification & facts. History now teaches us that all the Tsars children died after the revolution. This is a very good film which blends great acting & story, with a good pathway into learning more history.

For a long time, I mainly knew of this movie as the one in which Ingrid Bergman won her second Oscar after suffering for several years under a scandal of having an adulterous relationship with an Italian filmmaker with whom she bares a child and later marries. Anyway, here she's an amnesia-addled victim who's recruited by Yul Brynner to pass off as the sole survivor of a family who were killed long ago. Helen Hayes plays the one Ms. Bergman is supposed to impress the most. All three performances are quite good. The ending is open-ended which makes this a much different kind of conclusion from the kind usually associated with Hollywood. Mom and I enjoyed it though so that's a recommendation for Anastasia.

Typical Hollywood fare circa 1956 complete with a gypsy dancing sequence.

Ingrid Bergman at 42 is too old for the role. She is playing 27 year old Anastasia. But everyone watched the movie to see Ingrid more than Anastasia.

That is not to say the film was not entertaining, it was, although it started off slow. Also it is filmed almost entirely with stage sets which is depressing we are so spoiled these days.

Why is it that a film that was made in 1956 and is supposed to take place in 1928 still looks like 1956? Something about the hairdos the way the women were trussed up even the way they walk...and finally as mentioned above the prerequisite gypsy dancing scene. You expect a Cadillac fin to be in the mix some place.

A watch if you have nothing better make allowances for period Hollywood corn.

ANATASIA is a warm welcome vehicle for Ingrid Bergman, after her exile in Europe with her then- husband Roberto Rossellini, her first Hollywood feature since 1949, it won her a second Oscar.

Directed by Oscar-nominated director Anatole Litvak, the story is loosely based on a historical event, in 1927, Paris, Anna Koreff (Bergman), a woman who is suffering from amnesia and distress, has a remarkable resemblance to the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who is the youngest daughter of the late Tsar Nicholas II and may have miraculously survived the execution. Anna is coerced by a former Russian General Bounine (Brynner) and company, to impose Anastasia, so as to get an inheritance worth of £10 million. But to achieve that goal, Anna must get the approval from the exile Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Hayes), Anastasia's paternal grandmother, who firmly believes Anna is a hired hand like many others before and refuses to dredge up her wretched memories of the monarchy's abdication.

Over forty then, it is quite a stretch for Bergman to carry off an allegedly 26-year-old Duchess, but Anastasia's supposedly decade-long trials and tribulations give her a free pass when she appears disheveled, jaded and frail, attempts to drown herself in the Seine. The proper transformation is where Bergman reigns supreme, her star-appeal and royal flair glamorously ignite the screen and she is so in her comfort zone to exude vulnerability while remaining the nuance of regal dignity. It is a standard performance out of her competence, its Oscar reward is an over-achievement.

Brynner has a banner year in 1956, a one-two-three punch with THE KING AND I, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and this one, his blunt-talking eloquence and stern countenance mingled with an unspecifiable accent, are competent for a business-orientated mind, but the growing romance between Bounine and Anna, it is too understated to detect. And Helen Hayes, the picture is also a grandiose showcase for the First Lady of the American Theatre, her conversion from steely negation to emotional capitulation is so cliché but her sterling acting is abounding in pathos and reverberations, and upstages everyone else in the cast. Also, Martita Hunt is a flamboyant hoot as Baroness Elena von Livenbaum, the first lady-in-waiting of empress.

"The party is over, go home!" Empress Marie's imperious remark concluded this identity- discovering mystery with an anti-climatic finish, the thematic revelation (as corny as it is) of falling in love with a person as she is, sounds like a wishful thinking and feels as vague as the true identification of Anna Koreff, which the film cautiously toys with.

A typical Hollywood excesses on the production scale, where all the sophistication yields to a simplified open-face romance, ANASTASIA is beguilingly banal and banally beguiling.

Excellent film about a group of Imperial Russian expatriates who try to pass off a nobody as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who was supposedly executed along with the rest of her family a decade ago. No one knows, not even the woman herself, whether she is or is not Anastasia. Ingrid Bergman plays this woman in her glorious return to Hollywood after several years of exile on account of the affair she had with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. History, or at least some of us film buffs, see her exile as something other than shameful, but you can't really judge Anastasia without seeing it as a homecoming. The story echoes Bergman's life, as I'm sure it was meant to. Can this Anastasia convince those who once knew her that she really is the long lost Grand Duchess? Can Ingrid Bergman convince the American public that she is worthy to be taken back into their confidence? To answer the first, you'll have to see the film. The answer to the second question is a definite yes, as the film was quite successful and earned Bergman her second Academy Award, which she much deserved (her first was for 1944's Gaslight). She was not present at the ceremony in 1957 to accept that award, but I'm unsure of whether she was still in exile at that point. The film was made outside of the U.S.

After Bergman, there is still a whole lot to love. As for the other actors, Yul Brynner, playing the man who enlists Bergman in his plot to win Anastasia's inheritance, gives a fine performance, easily the best of the three films he made in 1956, even though he won an Oscar for his ridiculously over-the-top performance in The King and I. Akim Tamiroff, always reliable, gives one of his very best performances as Brynner's assistant. Helen Hayes is great as the dowager empress whose opinion is absolutely necessary to accept Bergman as the real Anastasia, and Martita Hunt gives a delightful comic performance as her attendant (she was the best thing in the film, in my opinion). The musical score, by Alfred Newman, won the only other Oscar nomination for the film, and it is excellent. The dialogue is wonderful. There are only a couple of things I didn't like, and they are relatively minor. Nearer the beginning, for instance, the screenwriter (or the original playwright) has a problem keeping the ambiguity of whether Bergman is actually Anastasia or not. The hints the woman gives off are instantly convincing that she is the lost woman. Fortunately, this improves over the course of the film and the ambiguity becomes somewhat more pronounced. I'm not sure whether I liked the ending, either, although it has a great last line (which I expect was even greater when it was a play).

I usually like movies about pre-revolution Russia. The Russian architecture. The winter shots of horse drawn sleds flying across frozen rivers and lakes. The summer and winter palaces of the Czars. And particularly the music of Russian composers. Tchaikovsky Rachmaninoff Rimsky-Korsakov.

But Anastasia had too little of that and too much conspiracy theory. It was unbearabley slow and took place in far to many waiting rooms. I also felt it should have given the viewers more historical backround of the ruling family.