Sissi

I certainly love the Sissi saga :everytime it's broadcast,I find myself watching for the umpteenth time these three films which the highbrows despise so much.

I read several biographies of the empress and it's stating the obvious to say it's fictionalized history (the right term would be "fairytaled" history for this first episode strongly recalls Cinderella).Romy Schneider did not think much of her part and she used to approve of Visconti's Elisabeth she played in "Ludwig" (1973).

"Sissi" is pure entertainment ;all the characters are endearing :the colonel provides a good comic relief ,Sophie is a perfect villainess,the witch, ,Ludovica the good fairy,Max the bon vivant,the swarm of children a foretaste of the "sound of music" -the Trapp were Austrian,weren't they?-and the lovers ,Franz and Sissi are as close as fairytale prince and princess as they can be.

I certainly love the Sissi saga.Down with the highbrows!

I have seen these films over and over again, probably already more than fifty times. This is the first of a series of three Austrian films, produced in 1954 ("Sissi"), 1955 ("Sissi-die junge Kaiserin") and 1956 ("Sissi-Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin"), directed by Ernst Marishka, and are the epitome of total kitsch and enormously campy. I know that these films are almost unknown outside of continental Europe, but still, they are worth seeing! Played by a very young Romy Schneider - a role that stuck to her, much to her chagrin in later years. The trilogy is about the life of the Austrian Empress and Hungarian Queen Elizabeth (1837-1898) - or "Sissi" - in the first years of her marriage to the Austrian Emperor and 'Apostolic' King of Hungary Franz-Joseph I (1830-1916) - played by Karl-Heinz Böhm. Although the writers did fib frightfully with the historical truths (read for those "Elisabeth", the biography written by Brigitte Hamann), still, the sugar sweetness, the crinolines, the music and the grandeur of the scenes is breathtaking. However, my favourite character in the film is "Sissi's" mother-in-law, archduchess Sophie, played very ably by Vilma Degischer. Sophie is portrayed as a complete bitch of a woman (which in reality she was, after she managed to save the Habsburg monarchy single-handedly from the revolutionary mobs in 1848), something Joan Collins would be able to take lessons from... My most favourite scene is the closing scene of the third movie: "E viva la mama!" - where Sissi is reunited with her daughter on Venice's Piazza San Marco. Watch it, and have lots of handkerchiefs ready for use (if you're a closeted romantic like myself, that is!).

In one of those fictional Mitteleuropean kingdoms that Victorian writers were so fond of -- Graustark, Ruritania, Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, but here called Austria-Hungary -- the Emperor's mother arranges for her son to marry her sister's eldest daughter. When he meets her second daughter wandering in the woods, however, they fall in love.

The charming anti-Cinderella tale of Sissi is based on history, sort of, but it is brought to the screen in its fairy-tale glory with shots of Schonbrunn Castle, Bad Ischl, lavish sets and costumes and 15-year-old Romy Schneider. Its nostalgia for the dead glories of a lavish court life, stuffed-shirt bureaucrats -- Josef Meinrad has a very funny turn as the incompetent major in charge of security -- is certainly fun to look at, so long as we remember that it's just as unreal as any Disney feature cartoon, even if there are no singing mice. If only the characters in this one didn't look so real.....

I am well familiar with the story of the Empress Elizabeth. While the basic facts are all here, the story may have been both simplified and sweetened to present it in a movie. However, the end result is a thoroughly delightful and strongly idealized version of historical events. Both Sissi and the emperor are presented as extremely likable, visually appealing characters, interacting in a fairly-like story. The entire movie plays like a fairy tale and is visually very appealing. The majestic beauty of the Bavarian scenery contrasts with the opulent setting of the Viennese court. The costumes, manners, music, dances - all true to the period. I did not expect to like it as much as I did and would recommend it to all lovers of historical drama and 19th century Austrian history in particular.

"Sissi" is the first part of a trilogy about the Austrian princess/empress Elisabeth in Bavaria, aka Sissi (Romy Schneider). The teenage princess lives happily in Bavaria with her parents, Duke Max (Gustav Knuth) and Duchess Ludovika (Magda Schneider, Romy's real life mother), and siblings. When Ludovika is invited by her sister, Archduchess Sophie (Vilma Degischer), to take Helene, Sissi's older sister, to the Austrian court in Ischl, in order to arrange a royal engagement for Helene and the young emperor Franz Joseph (Karlheinz Böhm), Sissi goes along. However, nobody could imagine that Franz would fall in love with the spontaneous, childish Sissi, instead of the sophisticated Helene.

"Sissi" is nothing more than a naïve, romantic matinée – but a very well done romantic matinée! Romy Schneider shines as the young princess, she's the heart of the movie. It's impossible not to fall in love with her gorgeous smile and sweet manners.

Released in the same year as another unforgettable romance ("Picnic", with William Holden, Kim Novak and Rosalind Russell), "Sissi" may not be called a masterpiece. However, I cannot give anything less than a "10" to a movie that makes you feel good and smile even during the hardest times.