Sissi

Plot synopsis:
Princess Elisabeth, nicknamed "Sissi", is the second oldest daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. She is a carefree, impulsive and nature-loving child. She is raised with her seven siblings at the family seat Possenhofen Castle on the shores of Lake Starnberg in Bavaria. She has a happy childhood free of constraints associated with her royal status.
With her mother and her demure older sister Helene (called "Néné"), 16-year-old Sissi travels from Possenhofen to the spa town of Bad Ischl in Upper Austria. Ludovika's sister, Archduchess Sophie, is the mother of the young emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Helene is called by Archduchess Sophie to meet the young emperor Franz Joseph in the imperial villa so that the two might be immediately engaged. Sissi is unaware of the real reason for the journey and is forbidden by her aunt to participate in any social events due to her girlishly impetuous ways.
Sissi spends her time fishing in the forest where by chance she meets Franz Josef. The emperor is unaware that the girl is his cousin Sissi. He takes a liking to her and invites her for an afternoon hunting trip in the Alps. They meet as arranged in the mountains where they talk and become acquainted. Sissi falls in love with him but does not reveal her true identity. During their trip, Sissi learns of the planned marriage between Franz Joseph with her sister. The Emperor confesses that he envies the man who will marry Sissi and confesses that he feels no connection to Néné. Upon hearing his indirect declaration of love, Sissi becomes distraught due to her loyalty to Néné. She runs away from Franz Joseph without any explanation.
When Sissi returns to their residence, Néné reveals the reason for the trip to Bad Ischl: to become engaged with Franz Joseph. Unexpectedly, Franz Josef's brother, Carl-Ludwig, arrives and Sissi is invited by the Archduchess to act as his partner at the Emperor's birthday celebration. At his birthday party, Franz Joseph is suddenly confronted by Sissi's appearance there with her mother and sister. He realises who Sissi is and tries to talk to her, openly confessing his love and asking her to marry him. Sissi rejects Franz Joseph in order not to betray her sister. He defies his mother's reservations and Sissi's resistance and announces, to the surprise of his guests, his betrothal to Sissi. Néné is heartbroken and leaves the party crying. Sissi, in a state of shock, is forced to obey the Emperor's wishes.
In Possenhofen, preparations for the wedding have started. Sissi is not excited about her impending marriage, as the hurt Néné has left for an indefinite period. For her sister's sake, Sissi attempts to break her engagement, however, Néné returns with a new suitor, Maximilian Anton, Hereditary Prince of Thurn and Taxis. The sisters reunite and Néné gives her blessing to Sissi for her marriage.
For the wedding ceremony, Sissi travels with her family on the steamboat "Franz Joseph" down the Danube to Vienna. People line the banks, waving flags and cheering their future Empress. As part of a grand procession, Sissi enters the city in a gilded carriage. The wedding takes place in the Augustinian Church on April 24, 1854.

Tags: romantic

Review:
I know these films are considered by some purported high-brows to be of low popular-art form and saccharine emotions.
Above all Romy Schneider and Vilma Degischer as Sissi and Sofia playing the tension between the young empress and her formidable mother-in-law, are great to watch.
Each has their own humanity and, actually, rich human qualities shine through in all of the other characters quite beautifully.Karl-Heinz Boehm is excellent as the young emperor torn between his love for the fresh and lively Sissi and duty to his by-the-book mother.
And Magda Schneider and Gustav Knuth are warm and sympathetic as Sissi's parents.The restoration, recently performed on these films, has left them looking incredibly beautiful (on par with "Gone With the Wind").
"Sissi" is the first part of a trilogy about the Austrian princess/empress Elisabeth in Bavaria, aka Sissi (Romy Schneider).
The teenage princess lives happily in Bavaria with her parents, Duke Max (Gustav Knuth) and Duchess Ludovika (Magda Schneider, Romy's real life mother), and siblings.
When Ludovika is invited by her sister, Archduchess Sophie (Vilma Degischer), to take Helene, Sissi's older sister, to the Austrian court in Ischl, in order to arrange a royal engagement for Helene and the young emperor Franz Joseph (Karlheinz Böhm), Sissi goes along.
Romy Schneider shines as the young princess, she's the heart of the movie.
It's impossible not to fall in love with her gorgeous smile and sweet manners.Released in the same year as another unforgettable romance ("Picnic", with William Holden, Kim Novak and Rosalind Russell), "Sissi" may not be called a masterpiece.
However, I cannot give anything less than a "10" to a movie that makes you feel good and smile even during the hardest times..
Charming story of sweet love with young Romy Schneider in main role.
There was a time, about thirty years ago, when Marischka's SISSI trilogy was considered kitschy by many critics.
Fortunately, these times are gone and again we all can see these beautiful films without being influenced by the critics and their politics.I must admit that Sissi has always been one of my favorite movies.
Romy Schneider, her acting, gestures and her face are almost identical with real Sissi.
However, I heard that this role had such an impact on Romy's life that she was associated with Sissi throughout her career.
As a result, some people consider SISSI films the deepest insight into Romy's life.
Magda Schneider, Romy's mother, gives a fine performance as Ludovika, Karlheinz Bohm (Franz Josef) does an excellent job.
He was not so much attached to family life...Another reason why I like these films is the fact that despite its historical inaccuracies (their love did not look like that), these movies are very gentle, show the value of love between a man and a woman and as a result, they can be watched even by small children without harm done to their psyche.Some say that Sissi is for sentimental girls and old women.
I am a 25 year old man and come back to these films with great pleasure and so do a lot of my friends.
Played by a very young Romy Schneider - a role that stuck to her, much to her chagrin in later years.
The trilogy is about the life of the Austrian Empress and Hungarian Queen Elizabeth (1837-1898) - or "Sissi" - in the first years of her marriage to the Austrian Emperor and 'Apostolic' King of Hungary Franz-Joseph I (1830-1916) - played by Karl-Heinz Böhm.
However, my favourite character in the film is "Sissi's" mother-in-law, archduchess Sophie, played very ably by Vilma Degischer.
I certainly love the Sissi saga :everytime it's broadcast,I find myself watching for the umpteenth time these three films which the highbrows despise so much.I read several biographies of the empress and it's stating the obvious to say it's fictionalized history (the right term would be "fairytaled" history for this first episode strongly recalls Cinderella).Romy Schneider did not think much of her part and she used to approve of Visconti's Elisabeth she played in "Ludwig" (1973)."Sissi" is pure entertainment ;all the characters are endearing :the colonel provides a good comic relief ,Sophie is a perfect villainess,the witch, ,Ludovica the good fairy,Max the bon vivant,the swarm of children a foretaste of the "sound of music" -the Trapp were Austrian,weren't they?-and the lovers ,Franz and Sissi are as close as fairytale prince and princess as they can be.I certainly love the Sissi saga.Down with the highbrows!.
Romy Schneider in her own fairy tale.
Of course everybody loved her - well, she got killed by someone eventually, but that is not in the film and it does not prove anything anyway.
If you know Romy Schneider only from her later (mostly French) films do not even try to imagine how beautiful and charming, well sweet she was.
All three films will be valued as the highest art in the million years to come by anyone who can enjoy a fairy tale..
But this is one of the greatest bavarian classics for all time, and maybe is the sweetest and famous films for all the family of the golden period (forget little women or Gigi.
Even that this movie today is too cursi and all fashion, Romy Schneider beauty and precoz talent still shine (she was 16 when she made SISSI).
She had chemistry with her the emperor.the movie has three sequels, Magda Schenider shines in the third part (with an excellent chemistry with her daughter in film and real life), but in this are the "battle scenes" between Sissi and her mother in Law that are grate to see again Too sweet but a classic.
Austria, 19th centutry: the bavarian princess Elisabeth meets the austrian emperor Franz-Josef and of course they fall in love.
This film is really nice and if you like lovestories you'll love it.
When he meets her second daughter wandering in the woods, however, they fall in love.The charming anti-Cinderella tale of Sissi based on history, sort of, but it is brought to the screen in its fairy-tale glory with shots of Schonbrunn Castle, Bad Ischl, lavish sets and costumes and 15-year-old Romy Schneider.
This story covers love, the obstacles to becoming Empress, the stumbles of the relationship with her mother-in-law and there are also some comedy scenes and funny conversations in all of the movies Sissi 1-3.
Lucky me, I have seen this movie (3 of them) with English subtitles and German language, so for me this presentation is a more valuable experience to see.
The DVD box set of the movie Sissi can be bought online from www.ezydvd.com.au.
The presentation of the movie from that DVD box set includes original German language and English subtitles..
Forget all the mush for a moment (and what a mushy film this is!) and bear in mind that we are in Germany just ten years after the war.
By a happy coincidence the same Haydn melody was used for the Austrian national anthem (played at Sissi's arrival in Austria) before the First World War as was adopted for the German national anthem after the First World War and which was still in use (in Germany) in 1955 and is of course still in use today.While Germany itself was in a state of unresolved guilt combined with intense denial, Austria, as is often pointed out, had neatly evaded all "denazification" after the war.
The Marischka brothers, Hubert and Ernest (who directs these films) were very Vienna and had always been more operetta and waltz music than sturm und drang and blut und boden - the acceptable if frivolous side of Germanic culture.When Werner Krauss, great actor but notorious anti-semite, was unable to work in Germany, he moved to Austria, took Austrian citizenship and continued his career until rehabilitated and restored to his German citizenship in 1951.
He was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (German "order of merit")just the year before this film came out and, on his death in 1959 the Iffland-Ring (traditionally held by the finest living German actor)passed not as expected to Oskar Werner (a noted anti-Nazi ) but to another Austrian, Josef Meinrad whose comic major in the Sissi films is amongst his most notable film appearances.Magda Schneider, for her part, lived on in Bechtesgarten where she had been Hitler's neighbour, friend and favourite actress.
Unlike her mother, she was Austrian born (Vienna) so was the perfect representative both of a continuity with pre-war Germany and of an innocent new generation, uninvolved in the awkward bit that came in between.The same might be said of Karlheinz Böhm whose father, the conductor Karl Böhm, has publicly welcomed Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938 and conducted the concert given on the occasion.
He has himself, it should be said, been a notable philanthropist as well as appearing (to is cost) in one of the most remarkable and disturbing films ever made about the father-son relationship - Michael Powell's Pepping Tom.While fifties Germany avoided the spectacular in cinema and specialised in the "heimatfilm", celebrations of all those good, old-fashioned German virtues that could not be mistaken for Nazism, Austria was the perfect place to produce a kind of postwar pan-Germanic epic that is rather like a glorified version of the heimatfilm (hunting and fishing, Bavarian beer and skittles).Historical verity has necessarily to take a back seat so that the portrayal of this part at any rate of the Germanic world can be seen as entirely sympathetic and all the reverse of "you know what".
I am not blaming Germans for wanting to make films like this.
Romy Schneider is "Sissi" in this 1955 film, the first of a trilogy about Empress Elisabeth of Austria.Sissi is not someone we are very familiar with in the United States, but in Europe, she enjoys a popularity similar to Princess Diana's.
She is everywhere - candy boxes, dolls, you name it.This first film tells the story of the 15-year-old Sissi and her meeting with the man who would become her husband, Emperor Franz Josef, who was intended to be her sister Helene's husband; however, Josef fell for Sissi instead.Sissi fortunately lived at a time when there were no tabloids or tell-all books.
We see in the film that she was raised by a father who was very gemutlichkeit, fun-loving, and he encouraged his children to play and enjoy life.
And her cousin was Mad Prince Ludwig.This film covers the time up to her marriage, and Romy Schneider is both beautiful and charming in the role.
The film is so pretty, with gorgeous scenery and costumes, as well as some beautiful classical music.
Schneider went on to play Sissi in the two other films.These movies are shown in Europe at Christmas.Sissi has been the subject of a musical and an operetta (that I know of), several plays, two ballets, countless films, TV mini-series, several books, and is the subject of a song.
This film is like something Disney would produce, very lovely, and more a fairy tale than the real story..
Both Sissi and the emperor are presented as extremely likable, visually appealing characters, interacting in a fairly-like story.
The entire movie plays like a fairy tale and is visually very appealing.
I did not expect to like it as much as I did and would recommend it to all lovers of historical drama and 19th century Austrian history in particular..
Sweet Romy, Sissi was a blessing and a curse for her.
I am German and I grew up with the Sissi Trilogy and it still is on my yearly watch list for Christmas.
Of course I had to order the DVD as they don't show it here on TV.It's not a Christmas movie but it was always aired around Christmas in Germany.The historical facts could't be more inaccurate, but the movie still makes you feel good.
Romy Schneider was in real life almost as tragic as Sissi.
Just watch it for what it is, 90 minutes of beautiful scenery, dresses, music and more from an era long gone.Just sit back, laugh with them, cry with them and have a good time.
The fairytale of a young girl falling in love with a handsome emperor (king, prince, feel free to fill in) seems as timeless as can be, but this first Sissi movie doesn't quite make it...
SISSI is a an attempt at a movie.
The cast of the story is so one dimensional that watching this "movie" for too long (say 5 minutes) will make one sick to his stomach, not to mention that the thing is so boring that one runs the risk of becoming suicidal if run time exceeds 15 minutes.
Written and directed by Ernst Marischka, 1950's Austrian Sissi trilogy is charming fairytale about 19th century Bavarian princess Elisabeth or Sissi (Romy Schneider), who became wife of Empress Franz Joseph I (Karlheinz Böhm).
The films made Schneider a star but type-casted her, too.
(Side-note: Sissi's mother was played by her real-life mother, Magda Schneider, who had been part of Hitler's social circle, and Böhm's career was later destroyed by 1960 British horror flick Peeping Tom.) Denying of crap?
This is one of the most beautiful and sweet films I have seen in my long history of enjoying films .I think every student of film should see this film ,On how to frame a shot and fill every shot with beauty, Romy Schneider is Beautiful and charming, The scenery (is real)and post card perfect, With magnificent costumes, and with lots of comic touches, The women of the film taking up most of the light drama, and the men just wanting to relax and puzzled at and the fuss, Except for the Price who warns the young Princess that if they are to marry there is no guarantee of happiness as the future is uncertain for the Royals, Of course there is nothing to worry about for our couple in this film.
Sissi Movies.
I was born in Germany and grew up with the Sissi movies.
I have been in the States since 1962 and just discovered all 3 movies again.Since then I must have watched them over and over again, most of the time without sound since I know them by heart.
Make a long story short - I love the movies, I adore Romy Schneider and, of course, Karlheinz Boehm (by the way, he passed away on May 29', 2014 age 86).
It's important that you understand that this highly romanticized version of the life of Empress Elisabeth ('Sissi') of Austria is mostly fiction.
Plus, when my wife and I visited Vienna a few years ago, the locals often laughed at these movies and regaled us with tales of the REAL Sissi--who was, in some ways, a thoroughly self-absorbed and seemingly emotionally disturbed lady.
This rather nutty real version of Sissi's life would be very fascinating...but romantic, it is not!
As far as this film goes, I think how much you enjoy it will have a lot to do with whether or not you like fairytale-like stories.
I also think that perhaps it will play a lot better in Austria and throughout Europe--where they are more familiar with the mythical image of Sissi and where they might have a greater appreciation of royalty.
The film is made using the lovely 1950s color--and the DVD print is gorgeous.
It also didn't hurt that much of the film was filmed in the Austrian Alps--with some of the most amazing natural beauty you could ask for in a movie.
In addition, the music worked wonders with the scenery--setting a nice romantic mood for the film.
It also didn't hurt that Romy Schneider was in the film.
At 17, she was among the most beautiful young women in the world--and she played the character with a lot of seemingly natural charm.
In other words, while quite pretty the plot was a bit on the slow side--but it was still quite watchable and entertaining.I was happy to see Karlheinz Böhm in the film playing Emperor Franz Josef.
And, by the way, "Peeping Tom" is a thoroughly amazing and creepy film--well worth your time unless you are very squeamish!
"Sissi" is an Austrian German-language movie that is having its 60th anniversary this year.
And it is not only the defining film in Romy Schneider (too short) career, but often also considered one of the best and most known period pieces that do not come from the United States.
The writer and director is Ernst Marischka, who has already made films for over 40 years when he made "Sissi".
There's 2 more Sissi films by Marischka and this trilogy is certainly his most known legacy.
All 3 films star Romy Schneider, her mother Magda and Karlheinz Böhm as the male lead.I must say Romy Schneider is absolutely stunning and in terms of costumes, sets and basically all kinds of visuals, this is a very decent watch.
The ending of the film obviously indicated that there would be a sequel, but to me another "Sissi" movie was not necessary judging from the first.
And the way you will inevitable feel for Sissi is not enough to make up for everything that's wrong with this movie.
The political aspects are references at times, but never really elaborated on, which makes this movie pointless in terms of history.
I quite liked the movie overall however, even at the time it was produced it had a surprisingly naive and over-engineered feel to it..
"Sissi and Franz" sounds a bit like "Tom and Jerry", except that they love each other and drink a lot of alcohol.
In fact, I know some people who have heard that Sissi and Franz used to go for their holiday-sen in Ibiza and party hard over there.
For the next time, let's get back from this movie meant a lot to me.
when i met my wife, the love of my life, the light of my eyes, i was a Franz to my Sissi.