cold, strange, impressive. not loyal to the historical truth but a great show, mixed of Expresionism with kitsch, imposing a great actress in a strange role, using not the most inspired scene, ignoring the Christian - Orthodox sensibility and presenting a Russia in too gray light. but the art meanings sacrifices not exactly the truth. a film who is , out of hesitation, seductive, for the references to contemporary political situation, for the inspiration of a great director, for the memories and for the atmosphere. but it is difficult to define it more than one of the Expressionism'hills. piece of an artistic fashion/style, it is a trip in the time. with not the worst result.

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.

Gorgeous B&W photography of lavish palace interiors, a background score of classical music used effectively, and an interesting tale of royal intrigue all combine to make THE SCARLET EMPRESS a visually impressive showcase for the photogenic beauty of Marlene Dietrich under the direction of Josef von Sternberg. Indeed, it's probably near the top of all the films she did with one of her favorite directors.MARLENE DIETRICH goes convincingly from a naive and timid girl to a woman fully aware of her powers of seduction, making the transition very persuasively with little nuances of characterization that ring true. JOHN LODGE makes a dashing Count Alexei, who has the tables turned on him toward the end after she finds out he's been making midnight visits to the chamber of Empress Petrovna (Louise Dresser) and finds a way to retaliate. LOUISE DRESSER makes a formidable Empress although her voice lacks the commanding style of her acting. SAM JAFFEE is excellent in an almost thankless role as the mentally challenged Grand Duke Peter.Sumptuous to look at, it owes a great deal to the fluid photography and direction, as well as the forceful and constant use of classical background music, unusual for a film made in '34, which adds to the film's atmosphere and mood.Well worth seeing with Marlene Dietrich at her most alluring, exquisitely photographed by Bert Glennon with stunning art direction by Hans Dreier.

Josef von Sternberg's overpowering masterpiece is "a visual orgy" unparalleled in the annals of Hollywood history – the ne plus ultra of ornate production design, though Bert Glennon's luminous cinematography (occasionally shooting star Marlene Dietrich through a gauze) is equally irreproachable. Movie critic David Thomson, who had singled out the director among the 11 greatest film-makers in an essay on Howard Hawks in his indispensable "A Biographical Dictionary Of The Cinema", wrote elsewhere about THE SCARLET EMPRESS specifically that it is "often hailed as the fullest demonstration of Sternberg's genius…in truth…out of control – and it is not a picture he talks about very much in his self-serving autobiography". This is an early example of rival productions being set-up concurrently on the same subject, but it emerges as superior to the contemporaneous Alexander Korda-Paul Czinner British production CATHERINE THE GREAT in just about every conceivable way (even if it proved a commercial disaster that led to Dietrich being declared "box-office poison"!).Marlene Dietrich shines, delivering one of her most nuanced performances, as the young ingénue who believably matures into an ambitious Czarina able to lure men into usurping the Russian throne in her name (even leading them atop their steeds in full military regalia during the virtually dialogue-free climactic storming of the Palace!). The fact that Catherine was being portrayed by Dietrich made it conceivable that the Empress should have been sexually active outside wedlock – something that is not possible with Elizabeth Bergner – to the point of being impregnated by a soldier (I wonder just what the Russians made of this particular turn-of-events)! Although like the Korda version there is also a soldier named Orlof, here he only comes to prominence in the film's latter stages and is even made to murder the Czar (he is played by an unrecognizable Gavin Gordon); for the most part, Catherine's love interest is virile ambassador John Lodge (evoking Clark Gable in his one notable role). Even so, she repays Lodge's night-time tryst with the Empress by doing so herself later with Orlof and is seen playing innocent games with her ladies-in-waiting and personal guards as the old Empress lies dying!Remarkably, three great character actors appear right in the film's opening scene in which young Catherine (played by Maria Riva, Dietrich's own daughter) is waited upon by C. Aubrey Smith (playing Catherine's father), Edward Van Sloan and Jane Darwell; indeed, the last two never feature in the film again! The film's acting honors, however, are shared between a debuting Sam Jaffe (as a perennially wild-eyed Peter III) and Louise Dresser (as Czarina Elizabeth; she had previously played Catherine II herself in the Rudolph Valentino swashbuckler, THE EAGLE {1925}); all three leads offer a vastly different characterization to their counterparts in the aforementioned British film. The old Empress has an effete lover here, too, but Jaffe's concubine is somewhat less well defined if more insidious (she keeps coming back into a room she has just left to collect the Czar's toy soldiers: in fact, at one point, Jaffe has his army march inside the Palace because of the rain and they actually seem like a pack of toy soldiers!); incidentally, while one would normally scoff at the prospect of a "half-wit" having a girlfriend (there is no suggestion that she was so devoted to him merely out of a desire to secure her own place on the throne), we only need to remember that Nero had Poppea and Hitler his Eva Braun! The early montage showing the oppressive behavior of past Russian rulers like Ivan The Terrible takes full advantage of its Pre-Code vintage: one is shown repeatedly and ruthlessly beheading his prisoners; another is gleefully ringing a bell that has a prisoner tied upside down inside it!; and a bevy of nude girls are being tortured! To alleviate the gloom somewhat, we have the odd but effective instance of comic relief: the old Empress grabbing a turkey leg from the banquet table instead of her sceptre and Jaffe is shown drilling a hole in Dresser's bedchamber to look for Dietrich! Indeed, there is here much less reliance on political machinations (making copious use of rather stilted intertitles to further the plot) and soul-searching this time around on the part of Peter III. Even so, the constant barrage of music on the soundtrack – including such instantly recognizable classical pieces as Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries" and Tchaikovsky's "1812" – really adds to the authentic recreation of a past era marked by decadence and violence. Interestingly, some of the crowd scenes were lifted from Ernst Lubitsch's THE PATRIOT (1928) at a time when that director was Head Of Production at the studio!; since that one is presumed lost (outside of a theatrical trailer readily accessible on "You Tube"), it is ironic that the film only survives officially in this 'undignified' manner! Given Sternberg's predilection for shooing in a studio, it is possible that Dietrich's involvement in a film not directed by him at this point, i.e. Rouben Mamoulian's THE SONG OF SONGS (1933), was due to the time it took to construct the elaborate sets! The print utilized for the Criterion edition I watched is, sadly, quite weak and grainy in spots: one hopes that this film will one day be revisited on BluRay after having undergone the extensive restoration required; the film's running time is officially given in film tomes as 110 minutes but it runs for 105 here (possibly due to the 4% PAL speed-up factor) – even if the IMDb states it should be just 104!