The Scarlet Empress
The Scarlet Empress is a 1934 American pre-Code historical drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and John Lodge about the life of Catherine the Great. It was directed and produced by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Eleanor McGeary, loosely based on the diary of Catherine arranged by Manuel Komroff. Even though substantial historical liberties are taken, the film is viewed positively by modern critics. "The Scarlet Empress" is particularly notable for its attentive lighting and the expressionist art design that von Sternberg created for the Russian palace. The film stars Dietrich as Catherine, supported by  John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser and C. Aubrey Smith. Dietrich's daughter Maria Riva plays Catherine as a child. Plot. Princess Sophia Frederica is the innocent daughter of a minor East Prussian prince and an ambitious mother. She is brought to Russia by Count Alexei at the behest of Empress Elizabeth to marry her simple-minded nephew Grand Duke Peter. The overbearing Elizabeth renames her Catherine and repeatedly demands that the new bride produce a male heir to the throne, which is impossible because Peter never comes near her after their wedding night. He spends all of his time  with his mistress, his toy soldiers or his real soldiers. Alexei pursues Catherine relentlessly but without success. At dinner, he tries to pass a note to Catherine, begging for a few precious seconds with her, but Elizabeth intercepts it. She warns Catherine that Alexei is a womanizing heartbreaker. That night, Elizabeth sends Catherine down a secret stairway to open the door for a lover, warning her to not let him see her. Catherine sees that the man is Alexei and, shaken and angry, hurls a miniature that he had given her out the window. She enters the garden to retrieve  it and is stopped by a handsome lieutenant who is on guard duty for the first time. When Catherine tells him whom she is, he initially does not believe her and begins to flirt with her. She suddenly throws her arms around his neck, they kiss and she surrenders to him. Months later, all of Russia, with the exception of Peter, celebrates as Catherine gives birth to a son. Elizabeth promptly takes charge of the boy's care and sends the exhausted Catherine a magnificent necklace. Elizabeth is in failing health. Peter plans to remove Catherine from court, perhaps by  killing her. However, Catherine has become self-assured, sensual and cynical. She has learned how things work in Russia and plans to remain. The archimandrite is worried by the thought of Peter on the throne and offers Catherine his help, but she demurs, saying that she has "weapons that are far more powerful than any political machine." Catherine is playing blind man's bluff with her ladies in waiting, lavishing kisses on the assembled soldiers, when the bells toll for Elizabeth's passing. Peter taunts Elizabeth's corpse as she lies in state, saying that it is now his turn  to rule. An intertitle reads: "And while his Imperial Majesty Peter the III terrorized Russia, Catherine coolly added the army to her list of conquests." Catherine inspects the officers of Alexei's pet regiment, singling out Lieutenant Dmitri (the man from the garden) by borrowing one of Alexei's decorations to reward him for bravery. Orlov, Dmitri's captain, also attracts her attention. That evening, Catherine, who had refused to see Alexi privately since she admitted him to Elizabeth's quarters, finally permits him to visit her. When they are alone in her bedroom, she toys with him before sending  him down the secret stairway to open the door for the man waiting there. He sees Captain Orlov and understands that his chance for a relationship with Catherine has passed. At dinner, the archimandrite collects alms for the poor. Catherine strips her arm of bracelets, Orlov donates a handful of gems, Alexei gives a purse full of coins, the chancellor adds a single coin and Peter's mistress puts a scrap of food on the plate. Peter slaps the archimandrite's face and then proposes a toast to his mistress, but Catherine refuses to participate. Peter calls her a fool  and she leaves with Orlov. Peter dismisses Orlov and places Catherine under house arrest. He issues a public proclamation that she is dying. In the middle of the night, Orlov sneaks into Catherine's room and wakes her. In uniform, she flees the palace with her loyal troops. Alexei sees her depart and murmurs: "Exit Peter the Third, enter Catherine the Second." She rides through the night, gathering men to her cause. In the cathedral, the archimandrite blesses Catherine and she rings the bell that signals the start of the coup. Peter awakens and opens his door, finding Orlov standing  guard. Orlov tells him "There is no emperor. There is only an empress." and kills him. Catherine and her troops ride up the stairs in the palace, thundering into the throne room as pealing bells are joined by the 1812 Overture. Jaffe's role was his first in a feature film. Production. Director Josef von Sternberg described "The Scarlet Empress" as "a relentless excursion into style," and historical accuracy is sacrificed in the film for its style. To show Russia as backward, anachronistic and in need of reform, the imperial court was set at the Kremlin in Moscow, rather than  in Saint Petersburg, which was a more European city. The royal palaces in the film are shown as made of wood and full of religious sculptures, but free-standing religious sculpture is not part of the Orthodox tradition. Pete Babusch from Switzerland created hundreds of gargoyle-like sculptures of male figures "crying, screaming, or in throes of misery" that "line the hallways, decorate the royal thrones, and even appear on serving dishes." This resulted in "the most extreme of all of the cinematic representations of Russia." In film critic Robin Wood's words: "The Scarlet Empress" was one of the  later mainstream Hollywood films to be released before the Hays Code was strictly enforced. Near the beginning of the film, young Sophia's tutor reads to her about Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible and other ruthless czars, introducing an explicit montage of tortures and executions that includes several brief shots of women with exposed breasts. Reception. "New York Times" reviewer Dave Kehr described the film, with its "metaphysical treatment" of the subject, as clearly superior to the contemporaneous "The Rise of Catherine the Great" (1934), which was directed by Paul Czinner and produced by Alexander Korda. Leonard Maltin gives  the picture three out of four stars: “Von Sternberg tells the story...in uniquely ornate fashion, with stunning lighting and camerawork and fiery Russian music. It's a visual orgy; dramatically uneven, but cinematically fascinating.” In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader" included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100. In a 2001 review of the film for the Criterion Collection, film scholar Robin Wood placed it in the context of the collaboration between Sternberg and Dietrich: “The connecting theme of all the von Sternberg/Dietrich films might  be expressed as a question: How does a woman, and at what cost, assert herself within an overwhelmingly male-dominated world? Each film offers a somewhat different answer (but none very encouraging), steadily evolving into the extreme pessimism and bitterness of "The Scarlet Empress" and achieving its apotheosis in their final collaboration "The Devil Is a Woman". This resulted in the (today extraordinary) misreading of the films (starting from "The Blue Angel") as “films about a woman who destroys men.” Indeed, one might assert that it is only with the advent of radical feminism that the films (and especially the  last two) have become intelligible”. "The Guardian's" historical films reviewer Alex von Tunzelmann credits the film with "racy" entertainment value (grade: "B"), but she discredits its historical depth and accuracy (grade: giving the film historical credence only for creating a "vaguely accurate impression" of Catherine's relationship with Peter, dismissing the rest as stemming from the director's fantasies and infatuations.