The Rise of Catherine the Great

Today's movie for the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." by Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is "The Rise of Catherine the Great" which happens to be on YouTube.



It covers the time from when Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst arrives in Russia to marry Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir of the childless Empress Elizabeth, to her taking the throne from her husband with the help of those officers devoted to her.

Sophie and her mother arrive in Russia, but Peter has told his aunt he will not be marrying her. So Sophie wants to leave right away, but she runs into Peter and her love to him although she has never seen him before makes him change his mind.
On the day of the marriage, however, Peter starts wondering if she has been honest with him. He decides to spend his wedding night with his mistress instead.
Elizabeth advises the crying Sophie, now named Catherine, to gain the upper hand over Peter, so Catherine starts pretending she has lovers of her own to make him jealous which seems to work.
When Elizabeth is dying, she tells Catherine she wishes she had got rid of Peter, so she could take the throne.
Peter is behaving more and more strangely and although Catherine claims to still love him, she takes over the throne with the help of her officers, but insists that Peter will not be killed. In the end, she's told that Peter has been killed after all, but that it was the price for the throne.

Well, obviously movie biographies tend to distort reality more or less for the sake of a good storyline and this one is no exception.

Sophie did meet Peter before they got married, but they were both still children at the time. She went to Russia at 14, preparing for the marriage by learning Russian and converting to the Orthodox Church, that's also when she got her new name Catherine. From what I read, she probably wasn't in love with Peter and didn't want to be because she didn't think it would reciprocated, anyway. She did want to be Empress of Russia, though.
When she was 16 and Peter 17, they got married and they stayed married for 17 years until Peter's death, not happily, though.
Peter had mistresses and Catherine had lovers, but it has been speculated that the marriage itself possibly remained unconsummated and none of the three children were Peter's, even if her first son had been declared legitimate for the succession of the throne. Her youngest was fathered by Grigory Orlov, who, together with his brothers, was one of the officers playing an important role in the coup, but she never married again, not him or anyone else.
Not unusual in history towards women, especially successful ones, the fact that Catherine had lovers was used to damage her reputation by vastly exaggerating the numbers, but also through other rumors.
Nevertheless, she was the only female ruler to ever be called "the Great".
Nowadays, historians seem to regard Peter as strange, maybe even a little mad, but not necessarily as stupid as he is often made out to be.
This is only a very tiny speck of the story of course, after all this isn't a history lesson (just as in the post for "The Exile").

Now to my personal opinion about the movie.

The set and the costumes were opulent and I have seen some regrets that the movie wasn't filmed in color, but if you have read film posts of mine before you know that that isn't important for me.

I really liked Flora Robson as Elizabeth, tall and a very self-confident and smart Empress.

Fairbanks jr. seemed spoilt, but not necessarily too crazy; I thought it still worked rather well for this movie and I liked how he played it.

Other than some people, I was not a fan of Elisabeth Bergner's portrayal of Catherine most of the time. I admit that her English rubbed me the wrong way every, now and then. The movie is also on YouTube in the German dubbing and I watched part of it to find out if it was the same here - was it the lines or the combination of acting and speaking or Bergner's voice, sometimes you just have problems with a certain voice - and it must have been the combination of voice and pronunciation. Not very fair, I know, but voices just can have that effect.
What irked me more, however, was her acting in some scenes. I liked her best when she didn't play the timid little girl or the broken-hearted woman at the end because it gave me the feeling of her being a strong woman able to become "the Great", for example in the scene with her regiment. The rest of the time I just wasn't able to see the Empress, especially compared to Robson's Elizabeth.
Catherine prepared for this marriage and this "job". She may not have marched into Russia like a power woman at her young age, but I also can't imagine her being such a shy mouse.
Actually, I got bored of it quite early in the movie and almost stopped watching, but it became a little easier.

It would be interesting to see The Scarlet Empress with Marlene Dietrich. I doubt it will be much more correct historically, but from what I read, she was quite different as Catherine.
I haven't watched it yet, but it is already bookmarked, so if I ever feel like doing it, I might compare the two movies if I don't forget about it ... you know how it is with bookmarks ...