The Scarlet Empress (1934)

There's a case to be made that the Dietrich/Sternberg films may actually have been better as silent films, as a lot of the time the talkiness is the weakest, creakiest part, especially when compared to the images, which are so immaculate. Almost every frame of this film would look great blown up and mounted on a wall, and Dietrich looks like a religious icon most of the time, especially lit by candlelight during the wedding scene.The excesses of this film are second to none, and for sheer lurid spectacle, you can only really compare it to Cecil B DeMille, though this is a far more beautiful and well-told tale than anything DeMille ever made. There's nudity and adultery and torture and all that good pre-code stuff that would disappear from Hollywood screens for decades only a year later. This was the last gasp of freedom and it's a gasp everyone should share at least once.

The penultimate collaboration of the iconic and justifiably famous partnership of Marlene Dietrich and director Josef Von Sternberg is to me one of their best, also perhaps the most entertaining and most visually beautiful.Historical accuracy is not to be expected here, anybody expecting a truthful account of Catherine the Great's life are better off reading a biography. Taken on its own terms as a film, 'The Scarlet Empress' really impresses and 83 years on is still a great film, what shocked audiences back in 1934 (some of the content is ballsy and ahead of its time) fascinates many now. Where 'The Scarlet Empress' fares least is in the script, some of which going a bit over-the-top on the nonsensical weirdness. Which may disappoint anybody who loved the archness and sophistication of the writing of other Dietrich/Sternberg films like 'Shanghai Express'.Otherwise, any debits are far outweighed by the strengths and the size of those strengths. Visually, 'The Scarlet Empress' looks amazing, the production design is staggering in its ornate richness, the cinematography is classy and atmospheric while evoking typically and shockingly lustrous images and the use of light and shadow in the lighting is trademark Sternberg (who also directs as adroitly as ever).Another element that amazes is the music. Not just the music itself, with pieces of Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Wagner with some of their most famous work and justly so, but also the way it was used. It's constant but music that could easily have been little more than clumsily inserted "popular classical music favourites" has real atmosphere and dramatic power and is used so cleverly. For back in 1934 this use of music was certainly unique, and even now in 2017 'The Scarlet Empress' continues to be one of the most ingenious uses of music, classical or otherwise, on film.Regardless of any historical inaccuracy, the story is entertaining in its outrageousness while also capturing a real sense of period, a sense of wonder unique regardless of any decade or era and the lusts and intrigues of the court. What could have been completely thankless or caricature characters are interesting and beautifully played. Dietrich certainly lives up to the film's tag-line, she has had so many unforgettable moments on film and her performance in 'The Scarlet Empress' remains her at her most enviously luminous. She is also very commanding on screen, confident and moving even if at times the innocence could have had a softer touch.She is very well supported by a thrillingly demented but also soulful Sam Jaffe and a formidable Louise Dresser. John Lodge holds up better on repeat viewing, while nowhere near in the same league as Dietrich, Jaffe and Dresser in no way does he disgrace himself either, far from it.In summary, a great film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

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!

The best directors are adaptable, able to turn their talents to the needs of story and stars. On the other hand, a stylistic individualist such as Joseph "von" Sternberg may be excellent at what they do, but completely inflexible and as such their work tends to be uneven. However, although Sternberg was unable to bend his style to suit the material, there is always the chance that sooner or later the material would come along to suit his style. Enter The Scarlet Empress.It may be based on a true story, but The Scarlet Empress makes only fleeting contact with reality. It is a macabre, nightmarish fairytale imagining of history. As such Sternberg can go all out with his bizarre stylisation and disregard for convention. All those things which made a mess of his other pictures – the odd angles, the distracting foreground clutter, the hammy acting – they all fit in here. Sternberg was never one to elucidate plot or draw out emotional depth, and The Scarlet Empress is the one picture where he doesn't really need to.In this light, we can actually take time to appreciate the excesses of Sternberg's technique. The early scenes in Germany are comparatively light and airy. When Count Alexei arrives he introduces a swathe of blackness. From this point on Sternberg literally darkens the picture, not just from scene to scene but from moment to moment, for example when Alexei's cloak envelops Marlene as he kisses her. The Russian palace is a surreal creation, more like a bejewelled cave than a building. We can see the fine craftsmanship of Hans Dreier, but he was doubtless directed fairly thoroughly by Sternberg himself. It's shot and lit in such a way that it appears to have no limits, its edges lost in shadow. And as for Sternberg's close-ups! They are strange, wonderful, glittering portraits, worthy of the painted icons that are such a part of Russian culture. The only pity is that Sternberg treats his cast as merely part of the mechanical process. To him, a good actor like Sam Jaffe is simply there to be a grotesque, little different to the stone ones adorning every set.The exception is Marlene. Ms Dietrich shimmers under Sternberg's lens. Not only does she stand out more here than any other picture, like a shimmering jewel amid the shadows, this also happens to be her very finest performance. When we first meet her, she is a world away from her familiar screen persona, playing the teenage Catherine as timid, naïve and frail. As the plot progresses she transforms into the smart and confident seductress, and finally emerges as the charismatic empress-in-waiting, and this at last is the Marlene we all know. Her development, though radical, is absolutely believable, and throughout her acting is utterly flawless.And then, there is the music. The Scarlet Empress is an almost constantly musical picture, with much of the action wordlessly choreographed to a pounding background score. It is a truly symphonic work, what Michael Powell referred to as a "composed film". And it is reminiscent of Russian music purely in its tone – it has that same cruel, stark quality of Mussorgsky and Prokofiev; music from a culture who get a lot of ice and not much daylight. And yet the composer whose work is most prominently used in The Scarlet Empress is Tchaikovsky, by and large a confectioner of nice but plain melodic pieces. His music fits though, especially the Slavic March, and in any case Tchaikovsky has a lot in common with Sternberg – pretty but lacking in depth. And Tchaikovsky still had his masterpieces.