1934 Period Pieces

I’m kicking off 1934 with two historical dramas featuring female leads and casts of thousands.

the scarlet empress

Marlene Dietrich stars as Sophia, the innocent, wide-eyed Prussian royal, who morphs into the confident, flirtatious Catherine the Great. Empress Elizabeth brings Sophia to Russia to infuse the royal line with new blood. After changing her name and converting to Russian Orthodox, Catherine must marry Peter III, heir to the throne and a widely loathed idiot. Her romantic dreams dashed, Catherine copes with the disappointment by quickly learning the social and sexual mores of the court, while forging allies in the military and church. Always lurking behind the scenes is Count Alexei, the tall, dark, and handsome ambassador who escorted Sophia from her home and who has held the torch for her ever since. Unfortunately, the volatile Empress Elizabeth keeps him as one of her playthings. After Elizabeth’s death, Peter takes the throne, but his brutal reign is short lived. The movie ends with the army’s successful coup and Catherine’s succession to the throne after her husband’s murder.

From awestruck princess

to sophisticated empress

Though Josef von Sternberg’s sumptuous production features lush costumes and impressive sets, he is no straightforward Hollywood director. He has an obsession with Russian bells and his shots of Dietrich’s luminous face shining through nets and veils remind me of Man Ray photographs. Still, Sternberg’s artistic streak doesn’t detract from his skill as a storyteller. He effectively employs captions to advance the plot and overlays (I’m not sure what the technical term is) to provide background and to convey tone quickly (e.g. as part of Sophia’s education, she learns about Ivan the Terrible which results in a sequence of clips showing burning bodies and tortured citizens). What is distracting, however, is Sternberg’s presentation of the Russian empire as a barbaric place: instead of occupying the ornate Winter Palace, Empress Elizabeth, Peter, and Catherine live in a macabre chalet, where skeletons and demons are the only decor. I wanted to focus on Catherine’s transformation from an awestruck child to a fearless (and morally questionable) empress, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the spooky palace she was living in.

Unlike Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Marie Antoinette, and Queen Victoria, Catherine the Great doesn’t make it into film very often–or at least she hasn’t within recent memory. I’d love to see an updated, historically accurate version of The Scarlet Empress. However, I can’t imagine another actress competing with Dietrich’s beauty and versatility. She manages to play virgin, consort, and leader all in one film and convincingly.

Here’s my favorite scene from the movie. As she marries the manic Peter, Catherine looks like a lamb led to slaughter, while her sometime lover Count Alexei looks on. Sternberg has some gorgeous (and heartbreaking) close-ups of Dietrich.

cleopatra

Claudette Colbert stars in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic rendition of this ancient story about politics and love. Here, Cleopatra falls for her own strategic seduction of Rome’s key politician-generals, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony.

This movie surprised me by being much more than a romance, memorable only for its Egyptian-inspired dresses, so revealing even a Vegas showgirl would blush. Cleopatra shows well the Romans’ fear of “the other”, their chauvinism, and quest for supremacy. To most of the Roman senate, Cleopatra is an emasculating snake. Even Antony succumbs to this way of thinking; in his embarrassment and shame at being defeated at Actium and after Cleopatra’s subsequent surrender, he suddenly loathes his life as the “plaything of a woman” and commits suicide. The movie carries a near constant tension between the whole male Roman citizenry and Cleopatra. They detest her for being female, and for being female and powerful.

Meanwhile, the complex Cleopatra at one moment seems above the fray, with her systematic enticement of Caesar and later Antony, while the next she’s head over heels like a giddy schoolgirl. This 1934 Cleopatra exerts her authority, while undercutting herself with ridiculous cries of “He didn’t love me” after Caesar’s death. When Antony amazes and arouses her with his virulent call to action for a battle at Actium, she states “I’m no longer a queen; I’m a woman”. Again, Cleopatra must delicately balance her femininity and political maneuvering by appeasing her lovers and not overstepping a woman’s boundaries. In a great scene, Cleopatra cleverly manipulates Antony without threatening his masculinity. Earlier we see her struggle for Caesar’s respect, which she eventually gains by stabbing the eavesdropping Pothinos. To their credit, Caesar and Antony come to see her as an equal, but they also keep her close because she’s an exotic lover and generous host. Yet, this melange of beauty and intelligence makes Cleopatra so eternally appealing, fascinating, and even inspiring.

Cecile B. DeMille, like Cleopatra, understands the importance of spectacle. Two scenes stand out in my mind: Caesar’s triumphal procession into Rome with Cleopatra, and Cleopatra’s seduction of Antony on her Nile barge. Here’s a clip of the latter (just watch the first minute or so) — this is just after Cleopatra has gotten Antony sufficiently tipsy and she’s indicated to her servants that they need a little more privacy.

I’d also love to see a more historically accurate film of Cleopatra’s life. John has just read the recent Stacy Schiff biography, so I had his commentary throughout the film. The Cecil B. DeMille version could have benefited from conveying the passage of time a bit better. John pointed out that it seems as though everything happens within a few months in the movie, when the story really takes place over about 15 years. Anyway, Cleopatra is not the movie to see if you want the facts, but it is an example of grand cinema.