Customer Reviews

Czarina - Royal Scandal

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A Royal Scandal has taken a critical drubbing over the year and director Preminger professed not to like it. The film is brilliantly paced (rapid fire and crackling dialogue throughout), superbly acted, magnificently designed and photographed, and scored very creatively by Alfred Newman. One sees the seeds for Tallulah's famous offstage character in her shameless cruising of the young soldier who wants no greater glory than to be close to the throne and at this point she is young enough to pull it off gracefully, veering just to the edge of camp without crossing the line. Charles Coburn is very wisely used; a consummate reactor, he is often seen in the background tellingly reacting to two characters' interaction in the foreground. Anne Baxter brings fire and music to her role as the soldier's fiancée and Vincent Price brings a great deal of wit to what is little more than a cameo as the French ambassador.

Talullah's film appearances were few (The Cheat only recently released on DVD) and this showed her at her forte: comedy. Granted, she was also one of the great dramatic actresses of her day - her performance in The Little Foxes on Broadway is considered to be one of the finest of the 20th century - but more marketable actresses always won out over her in Hollywood; she never forgave Bette Davis for "stealing" the role of Regina in Foxes from her.

After he had "Laura" under his belt (which some people erroneously say he merely followed Rouben Mamoulian's blueprint, another director he replaced) in 1944, Otto Preminger accepted the directorial helm from another ailing master, Ernst Lubitsch for a comedy titled "A Royal Scandal" (GB title: "Czarina") in 1945, the same year he directed another film noir classic, "Fallen Angel." Otto insisted that the film star his friend, Tallulah Bankhead (who had just done Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat") and cast Anne Baxter, Vincent Price, Charles Coburn and especially William Eythe, a 20th Century-Fox lead actor who had appeared in "The Ox-Bow Incident" and "Song of Bernadette" before Otto again cast him in "Centennial Summer." Eythe had the choice role of the 24 year old soldier the Czarina, Catherine the Great (Bankhead) uses as her latest boy toy, who had been Anne Baxter's fiance. The rivalry between Bankhead and Baxter is done VERY Preminger and the casting of Eythe is similarly curious, if after seeing Otto's films, to know Otto can cast very well and effectively, and a sign of his pleasure with them, repeatedly. Despite reviewers, Eythe holds up with solid professional Bankhead quite well. Otto did not have the greatest success with "A Royal Scandal," but looking at it several times, it improves with viewings and (the week I bought this DVD, it sold out all available copies except a used copy for over $83.) so I am probably not alone to feel it is fashionable all over again. I can only imagine what would be done with this premise today, but here it remains completely delightful. As was not the case with "Laura," for "A Royal Scandal," Lubitsch, who had suffered a heart attack, retained producer credit, so I suppose Otto was a little cramped in being free to be himself. This edition is an import from Portugal and Spain but also in English, all regions, full screen, b&w.

When I was a kid I saw this movie five days in a row on "Million Dollar Movie," a New York City TV show of the late 1950s. As a ten year-old, I was enchanted by the sets and costumes, by what I thought was scintillating dialogue, and by Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Coburn and Vincent Price. I never forgot it, and was thrilled when it finally showed up on DVD.

Well...what a disappointment! Yes, Vincent Price is wonderful in the two scenes in which he appears ("Some say, 'See Naples, and die'...I say, 'See Catherine...and live!"). Coburn does his droll best to move things along. And Bankhead does occasionally amuse as the spoiled, lascivious autocrat of all the Russias.

But...comedy? It falls very, very flat. I blame Otto Preminger's direction for this -- it is so heavy-handed that it just weighs down the entire film, which congeals like a huge lump of cold overcooked pasta. If only Lubitsch had directed; this film and script are the sort of things he lent his light satirical touch to so well.

And finally, there is William Eythe, the Tyrone Power lookalike whom Catherine promotes on a daily basis from a simple lieutenant on the western front to commander of the palace guard. He's just awful -- frantic, breathless, and one-note throughout.

Sometimes childhood memories are utterly false.

I was deLIghted to see this old film by Otto Preminger again. I first saw it in
auckland in 1949 and have wanted to see it again ever since. By the magic of Amazon.com I have realised that second watching. Ernst LUbitsch produced many great comedies like Ninotchka, & Tovarich with Garbo and Colbert; but this one makes fun of Catharine of Russia in a delightful way. When Tallulah Bankhead finds her treasurer, Charles Coburn, has dipped into the till, she says "I don't mind you taking a little out of the treasury, but Nicolai, take it easy". And when Catherine is furious with her maid (Anne Baxter) and picks up a vase, Anne says , handing her another vase, "Not that vase, your Majesty, that's your Majesty's favourite"
It's situations like thia that make this film unique. Even to the end when Vincent Price as the French Ambassador arrives at her Court. Tallulah says "I'm lonelier than all the lonely women in all my lonely lands" What Vincent says next you'll have to get the movie to find out. Jonathan