1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Glossy, sumptuous romantic (but not terribly accurate) version of the love story of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, July 24, 2005
This review is from: De Mayerling a Sarajevo [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Max Ophuls, famous for his sumptuously arranged and produced visions of the Belle Epoque (see Lola Montez, La Ronde, The Earrings of Madame de... and so on), does it again in this 1940 film (one of his earlier efforts, and it's really pretty amazing how he was able to put together such a show in the middle of World War II; he must have done it before the catastrophe of the Fall of France), his take on the remarkable love story of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and Czech countess Sophie Chotek. John Lodge and Edwige Feuilliere, as the central couple, make an appealing pair, and well bring across the pathos of their love and struggle against the stultifying weight of the ossified protocol of Franz Joseph's court (Sophie, who would have in our day been considered a perfect match for any British royal providing she converted to Anglicanism, was continually reminded in great and small ways of her "inferior" status, which enraged her adoring husband. In fact, the fatal trip to Sarajevo in 1914 was undertaken in large part as a special treat for Sophie on their 14th wedding anniversary so that she could enjoy a moment in the spotlight at the side of Franz Ferdinand in his role as inspector-general of the Austro-Hungarian army, which didn't have the same protocol rules as the court did, and where Sophie could legitimately accompany her husband everywhere at his side.)
However, the movie takes a major liberty with history in the matter of the initial meeting of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, which prevents me rating this movie higher no matter how much I enjoyed it otherwise. Ophuls sets up that meeting as a stereotypical "Meet Cute", where Franz Ferdinand offends Sophie, who is giving a speech at a ceremony in Brunn (now Brno, in Czechoslovakia), by making her think he's not interested in what she's saying. In fact, the Archduke first met the Countess when she was lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella, wife of the Archduke Friedrich, a cousin of Franz Ferdinand's. Also, as the IMDB entry for this movie points out, Franz Ferdinand's mother, played by Gabrielle Douziat, had died long before he ever met Sophie, so his <u>stepmother</u>, Archduchess Maria Theresa, stood in her stead and proved to be a steadfast ally to her stepson and Sophie; they were married in 1900 at her residence.
John Lodge makes, as IMDB says, a "bold, human, very chivalrous and likeable" Franz Ferdinand. This may be a surprise to many who know the Archduke as a gruff, cantankerous, misanthropic fellow, but the movie does accurately reflect the deep love he had for Sophie. Edwige Feuillere, a very beautiful young woman, does not look very much like the real Sophie (though Sophie, while not a conventionally classic beauty, was a woman of definitely attractive looks and demeanor - her dark eyes were particularly celebrated for their beauty, and she was a woman of exceptionally serene and gentle personality who was one of the few people able to calm Franz Ferdinand when he went into one of his fits of anger about something or other) who was surrounded by eager suitors when Franz Ferdinand first met her. She is also a bit livelier and saucier in her performance than the real Sophie would perhaps have behaved.
Since the end of this particular story - the couple's assassination at Sarajevo - is so well-known, it is hardly a spoiler to discuss the tragedy, which forms the last sequence of the movie, here. It seems, as another commenter on IMDB says, that this sequence was overly rushed - probably because of the ongoing war - and the car used in the scene is radically different from the actual vehicle; that one was an open-topped automobile, and the movie car is covered. Also, the moment of the assassination is not filmed in a historically accurate way. We see a crowd thronging around the stopped car where Franz Ferdinand and Sophie have just been shot to death, but it didn't happen that way. When Gavrilo Princip fired his fatal shots, it wasn't thought at first that he had hit anything so the automobile got on its way again, with nobody noticing anything wrong until Franz Ferdinand started bleeding profusely from his mouth from the mortal wound in his neck. (In fact, and probably because of the constraints of movie censorship at the time, the actual attack and its immediate effects are not shown at all by Ophuls, just the - inaccurate - reaction by the surrounding crowd.)
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
