Anastasia

Plot synopsis:
This is an example of a weak British play turned into a much-admired Oscar and Bafta winning movie by screenwriter Arthur Laurents, director Anatole Litvak and composer Alfred Newman. Russian emigres living in Paris and Copenhagen ten years after the Tsar was executed during the First World War were historically drawn into an extortion scheme to draw on one of the family's unclaimed ten million pound bank accounts in the form of war reparations. .Yul Brynner is a player in the extortion scheme. As the group's window of opportunity to cop the lolly is drawing to a close, he boxes homeless woman, Ingrid Bergman, into being the claimant asking for fiscal executorship to draw on the ten million pound bank account. Because the players and their sycophants do not seem to be able to generate the legal paperwork to prepare the civil suit to claim the lolly, the second half draws into it a recluse widow played by Helen Hayes, whom they believe will be able to sort it out. What none in the group, least of all Yul Brynner, expects is that two of Hollywood's most admired stars, Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes, are given character blocking to exhibit loose cannon personalities who purposefully blow everything up at every turn, and also light up the screen with heart-rending performances as foils to Brynner's charismatic presence and powerful gut determination to extort money. Following their powerful confrontations which take up much of the second half, Bergman and Hayes disappear from the action to prepare, offscreen, a formal diplomatic reception to which the press will be invited to witness Hayes' proclamation of support for Bergman's civil suit petition to cop the ten million pound lolly so Brynner can distribute some of it to each cohort. Everyone gets a surprise when Bergman and Hayes slyly reveal their own counterplan to spoil everything and carry it off with aplomb, even if the denoument was not very well written in the play. Bergman quietly disappears into anonymity because her identity as a homeless woman is not yet established. Hayes informs her sycophants that she merely plans to make a grand entrance, then curtly command everyone to go home because there is no civil suit.

Tags: romantic

Review:
There's a witty, epigrammatic screenplay by the always reliable Arthur Laurents (love that closing line, and most of Helen Hayes' dialogue) that manages to speculate perceptively on the nature-of-performance theme without beating it into the ground; an evocative Alfred Newman score that surpasses virtually anything else he did at Fox; fine CinemaScope photography that really uses the outer reaches of the screen, though it does dabble in spectacle for spectacle's sake at times; a superb Hayes (she could be theatrically actressy or resort to little-old-lady tricks in other movies, but here she's the real deal); a delightful Martita Hunt; and chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner that suggests all the underlying sexual tension without ever stating it explicitly.
It helps, perhaps, that Bergman is infinitely more convincing as a princess than as a vagabond, and the retrospective certitude of the falsity of "Anna Anderson"'s claim helps to disguise her limits at the beginning of the film when, like Yul Brynner's General Bounine, we are meant to doubt her identity.
A trio of unscrupulous Russian exiles Yul Brynner, Sacha Pitoeff, and Akim Tamiroff locate an amnesia victim among the flotsam and jetsam of refugees in post World War I Europe and attempt to pass her off as one of Czar Nicholas II,'s daughters, Grand Duchess Anastasia, who survived the massacre of the royal family in 1918.
The role of "Anastasia" marked Ingrid Bergman's return to an American film production after her exile from America after 1949 and she won her second Oscar with it.
After a while Brynner and his confederates think that just maybe Ingrid's the real deal.Of course the ultimate test is whether the Dowager Empress of Russia, Helen Hayes, accepts Ingrid as the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Although Ingrid got her Oscar, I've always felt that Hayes gives the best performance in the film.At the age Dowager Empress Marie was in the Twenties all she had left was memories.
But he's a charming fellow and gives one charming performance.Both Brynner and Director Anatole Litvak with their own Slavic backgrounds give Anastasia a real flavor of authenticity for the main characters and the Russian exile background of the film.
It was shot on location in both Paris and Copenhagen and the camera work is first rate.Anastasia became a milestone film for Ingrid Bergman and while Anna Koreff may have been a bogus Russian princess, as an actress Ingrid Bergman was always the real deal..
As the woman who may or may not have been the Grand Duchess Anastastia, Ingrid Bergman was welcomed back with open arms by the Hollywood fraternity that had spurned her after her affair with Roberto Rossellini and she won her second Oscar for her performance.
It is a fine piece of acting in a film that is all about acting; (Bergman plays a woman called Anna Koreff who is being groomed to pass as the Grand Duchess, though it is no "Pygmalion" as she may well indeed have been the person she is being hired 'to play', though DNA tests later proved the woman in question was not Anastasia).Yul Brynner is the Russian general who acts as her Professor Higgins and he's excellent.
Ingrid Bergman, Helen Hayes and Yul Brynner do superlative acting performances and the direction, music and the cinematography just could not be duplicated, in my opinion.Other films have been redone with contemporary actors, some successful and some not so.It would be very difficult to improve on this one.
Critics were too quick to applaud this musty adaptation of Marcelle Maurette's play starring Ingrid Bergman as a rag-woman picked by crafty businessman Yul Brynner to be groomed into Russian royalty Anastasia, a Duchess long though deceased.
Helen Hayes is exceptionally good as the cautious Dowager Maria, whom Ingrid must work hard to convince, however Bergman herself (despite winning a Best Actress Oscar for this 'comeback' performance) is mannered, and she has no on-screen rapport with Brynner whatsoever.
In order to do this, however, they have to convince not only their fellow émigrés but also Anastasia's last surviving close relative, her grandmother the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.The film takes a number of liberties with history, although not quite as many as the cartoon version, which has been described as treating historical facts with "particular contempt".
Certainly, the real Anastasia, had she lived, would only have been 27 in 1928, but Franziska Schanzkowska (if she was indeed "Anna Anderson") was several years older than the woman whose identity she assumed, and Bergman looked considerably younger than her years.
The big weakness in Bergman's performance is that there is little chemistry between her and Yul Brynner, even though a romantic interest is supposed to be developing between their characters, and this is a major plot point at the end of the film.
Baldhead Yul Brynner is ideally cast beside her and there are some delightful characters in the supporting cast, namely Akim Tamiroff and Martita Hunt, but Helen Hayes steals the show with her touching portrayal as the old empress.
He won the Best Actor Oscar for his stagy but fascinating work in THE KING AND I, yet in ANASTASIA he delivers a brilliant, subtle, and completely captivating performance as the Russian general who engineers the plot to convince the world that the unknown woman he has encountered in Paris is in fact the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
You have to watch this film more than once to really see everything Bergman put into this role.And then, there's Helen Hayes as the Dowager Empress.
As for the other actors, Yul Brynner, playing the man who enlists Bergman in his plot to win Anastasia's inheritance, gives a fine performance, easily the best of the three films he made in 1956, even though he won an Oscar for his ridiculously over-the-top performance in The King and I.
Helen Hayes is great as the dowager empress whose opinion is absolutely necessary to accept Bergman as the real Anastasia, and Martita Hunt gives a delightful comic performance as her attendant (she was the best thing in the film, in my opinion).
Besides Bergman, the film stars Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes.We know today that Anna Anderson was a Polish actress and not Princess Anastasia, but before DNA, this was one of the world's great mysteries.
In the real story, Prince Phillip's DNA was used, since he is related to the Russian royal family, and proved that Anna Anderson was a fake, answering a question that had vexed people for decades.In this version, a Russian businessman, Bounine (Brynner) and some other Russian expatriates living in Paris plot to collect millions of Romanov money by grooming an unhappy, depressed young woman who has recently been institutionalized to be the Princess Anastasia due to her resemblance to the Tsar's youngest daughter.
But the big test will be before the Dowager Empress (Hayes) who has no interest in meeting another pretender.The acting is wonderful, with the beautiful Bergman giving a fully fleshed out performance, beginning as a confused woman and developing through the film into a real royal presence.
Brynner is very strong in his role, with moments of grace and gentleness.Bergman won her second Academy Award for her performance, but she is matched by Helen Hayes' powerful performance as the Dowager Empress, externally a hard woman but one whose heart has been broken by the tragic loss of her family.
The biggest conceit of ANASTASIA is the fact that the reunion scene, beautifully played by INGRID BERGMAN and HELEN HAYES, never took place in history.
Her career under his guidance was not entirely successful after starring in a mixed bag of Italian films.For slightly more accuracy, you might want to view a harsher version of the story, ANASTASIA: THE MYSTERY OF ANNA ('86) which starred Amy Irving as the enigmatic heroine and Olivia de Havilland as the Dowager Empress who refused to meet her.
Her final encounter with Bergman is played with dignity and restraint by both actresses.Yul Brynner does nicely in his fictional role and Martita Hunt gives the film's other most noteworthy performance as the Baroness.
Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for playing a very curious character in this intriguing film, however Brynner deserves a special mention too, playing a character for whom we are also unsure of his real motivations.
Ingrid Bergman won her second oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role Anastasia (1956).
In the end the Empress must decide her claim.Ingrid Bergman won her second oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role
a film impressive for less a magnificent scene - the meet between Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes.
Anatole Litvak directed this drama that fictionalizes the story of presumed murdered Czarina princess Anastasia, whom three Russian exiles(led by Yul Brynner) plot to pass off as the real thing in order to get part of the vast fortune, using suicidal and destitute woman named Anastasia(played by Ingrid Bergman in an Academy Award winning role) who comes to believe she is the real czarina, though must convince the skeptical Empress(played by Helen Hayes) to be accepted.
If 'Anastasia' was released in a different year to his Oscar-winning turn in 'The King and I' (a case of him dominating that film in a more colourful role than here, and the chemistry between him and Deborah Kerr was stronger than between Bergman) he would most likely have gotten some kind of award nod (not since 1942 with Teresa Wright in 'The Pride of the Yankees' and 'Mrs Miniver' was the same actor nominated in the same year for more than one film).One mustn't overlook Helen Hayes (also in a "comeback" performance though for different reasons to Bergman, having suspended her career due to her daughter's death and her husband's health), who gives a powerful and poignant performance as the Empress, a role so far removed from her usual roles.
Most of the story is gripping, helped by that the story it's based on is one of the most intriguing there is, especially telling are the scenes between Bergman and Hayes, very powerfully written, emotional and beautifully performed by both actresses.'Anastasia' for all these great things is not perfect.
It may have been due to being careful not to offend but this was a kind of story that deserved to have that question answered, and to be perfectly honest ambiguous/open to interpretation endings tend to generally not do it for me.Was expecting more chemistry between Bergman and Brynner, which comes alive in the dialogue and the delivery but not on screen between them.
ANATASIA is a warm welcome vehicle for Ingrid Bergman, after her exile in Europe with her then- husband Roberto Rossellini, her first Hollywood feature since 1949, it won her a second Oscar.Directed by Oscar-nominated director Anatole Litvak, the story is loosely based on a historical event, in 1927, Paris, Anna Koreff (Bergman), a woman who is suffering from amnesia and distress, has a remarkable resemblance to the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who is the youngest daughter of the late Tsar Nicholas II and may have miraculously survived the execution.
But to achieve that goal, Anna must get the approval from the exile Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Hayes), Anastasia's paternal grandmother, who firmly believes Anna is a hired hand like many others before and refuses to dredge up her wretched memories of the monarchy's abdication.Over forty then, it is quite a stretch for Bergman to carry off an allegedly 26-year-old Duchess, but Anastasia's supposedly decade-long trials and tribulations give her a free pass when she appears disheveled, jaded and frail, attempts to drown herself in the Seine.
Also, Martita Hunt is a flamboyant hoot as Baroness Elena von Livenbaum, the first lady-in-waiting of empress."The party is over, go home!" Empress Marie's imperious remark concluded this identity- discovering mystery with an anti-climatic finish, the thematic revelation (as corny as it is) of falling in love with a person as she is, sounds like a wishful thinking and feels as vague as the true identification of Anna Koreff, which the film cautiously toys with.A typical Hollywood excesses on the production scale, where all the sophistication yields to a simplified open-face romance, ANASTASIA is beguilingly banal and banally beguiling..
Anastasia-You Are the One. After her scandal with Director Rosselini, would the American public accept Ingrid Bergman again?The answer was a resounding yes in 1956 when Bergman won her 2nd best actress Oscar for Anastasia, the story of a girl who might be the only surviving member of the Czar Nicholas's murdered family.Yul Brynner had a banner year in 1956.
Besides playing the man who introduces Bergman as Anastasia to society, he gave a brilliant performance in The Ten Commandments and won the best acting Oscar for The King and I.
Almost 50 years later -- even after knowing the whole plotline has been once & for all been settled (DNA testing proved that the imposter Anna Anderson, portrayed by Ingrid Bergman in the film, was not & never was the long-lost Grand Duchess Anatasia) -- this film remains completely wonderful & marvelous.
A great script that is witty and often funny, filmed and acted beautifully.In addition to containing the finest performance of Ingrid Bergman's career, including Casablanca, Yul Brynner is at his best and Helen Hayes delivers an absolutely brilliant gem of a performance.
While Bergman justly won Best Actress of 1956 for her performance, I find it astounding that Brynner and especially Hayes did not even get consideration.
She is saved by a White Russian General, called Bounine (Yul Brynner).With a face hint by fatigue and stress, lost and broken, frustrated and unhappy, and tired to argue, she accepts modestly to be taken under care and to be trained by the General and his business associates Boris Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) and Petrovin (Sasha Pitoeff) in order to be passed off as Princess Anastasia, the daughter of the Czar of Russia...Bearing a strong resemblance to the Grand Duchess, the plan of the Russian group can succeed...
She must be recognized by her grand mother, the Dowager Empress of Russia, who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark...Helen Hayes is simply superb as the melancholic old Empress with a wistful desire to accept the vague truth...Yul Brynner plays his role with enormous task...The motion picture marks Ingrid Bergman's comeback to the Hollywood cinema after the European exile...
The scenes between Helen Hayes and Ingrid Bergman are excellent, in fact the best part of the film.
If you can ride out the dull spots in this talky 1956 movie there is a fascinating story in there somewhere.The film starts in 1928 as expatriate Russian supporters of the Romanov dynasty in Paris led by General Bounine (Yul Brynner), set up a scam to get their hands on a fortune left in a British bank by Tsar Nicholas II.The idea is to pass off Anna Anderson (Ingrid Bergman), a homeless amnesiac, as the Princess Anastasia.
The real history of the end of the Romanovs is still a haunting story; a 2014 BBC documentary, "Russia's Lost Princesses", gives a brilliant insight into their lives and shocking deaths.One thing about Anatole Litvak's "Anastasia" though, every time I see it, it fires my imagination to know more about the real events..
Wonderfully charismatic Yul Brynner, and a 'reborn' Ingrid Bergman  making her reappearance in Hollywood after years in exile  star in this slightly odd film, a fantastic reworking of an original true story.
Ingrid Bergman won an Academy Award for her Hollywood comeback role (after 5 or 6 years of European film-making with husband Rossellini)as the title character.
This is quite a good film that never reaches the dramatic heights it could, but is nevertheless entertaining with it's intriguing plot and great acting performances.The intrigue surrounds Bergman's character, Anna Koreff, who General Bounine (Yul Brynner, possibly the most attractive bald man ever)is trying to pass off as the Grand Duchess Anastasia in order to collect the fortune left by Anastasia's father, the Czar of Russia in the Bank Of England.As history has it, after the Romanov dynasty in Russia was overthrown in Russia in 1917, the Czar, his wife and their five children were slaughtered in a cellar by Bolsheviks the following year.
Anastasia's fate is one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century, and Bergman's Anna is based upon a real-life woman, Anna Anderson, who claimed to be the Russian Princess.
Principal players: Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia), Yul Brynner (the prince), Helen Hayes (the dowager empress).Interesting players in supporting roles: Akim Tamiroff (Chernov), Martita Hunt (the baroness), Ivan Desny (Prince Paul).
COMMENT: Deservedly a great commercial and critical success, "Anastasia" won numerous awards, including America's two top Best Actress citations for Ingrid Bergman and a National Board of Review "Best Actor" for Yul Brynner.
Anna Koreff (Oscar and Golden Globe winning Ingrid Bergman) is the orphaned woman who has no memory of where she came from, turning up in Paris and found by General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) who is very keen on the £10,000,000 inheritance.
But it's a movie in which all the stars shine, and Yul Brynner blends dignity and resentment well as the fallen Russian general, and Helen Hayes is utterly believable as the exiled Dowager Empress who has lost her daughter and grandchildren to the Russian Revolution.
Twentieth Century Fox pulled out all the stops for disgraced Ingrid Bergman's return to the hypocritical Hollywood circle with this handsomely staged film version of the mystery of Anastasia, the Russian Czar's daughter rumoured to have survived her family's massacre.
The reunion scene between Anna and Hayes' crusty Dowager Empress is both exquisitely acted and a real tearjerker, and it is here that the film should have ended, rather than continuing with the ill-conceived romantic sub-plot involving Anastasia's royal engagement..
I thought Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman was absolutely wonderful at playing Anna Anderson!
Ingrid Bergman's and Yul Brynner's characters both straddle the fence between the dead nobility and the live serfs for the first 100 minutes of ANASTASIA.