The film that a love child of Fellini and John Waters would’ve made. Bizarre and stylized and campy as hell !

Historical accuracy be damned. The surreal imagery, camp performances, weird little comedic bits, and Dietrich are the reasons to see this.

In The Scarlet Empress, the story of the rise to power of Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's film deviates so far from history that it is not such a biopic as a fantasy about the life of the Russian Empress. I doubt many viewers emerge from a viewing of The Scarlet Empress with any detailed understanding of the events that took place in Russia during those years, and nor should they. The film marked the high point of the collaboration between director Josef von Sternberg and his leading actress (and lover), Marlene Dietrich. In another sense it was a low point. The relationship between von Sternberg and Dietrich was beginning to crack, and The Scarlet Empress, the sixth film that they had made together, was an expensive box office flop. If public tastes were changing, this was not because the films of von Sternberg and Dietrich were becoming stale. On the contrary, The Scarlet Empress is perhaps the most inventive of the seven films that Dietrich made with von Sternberg. It may not be great history, but it is a camp and kitsch classic, played with an emphasis on sly humour and cynical fun. It may be style over substance (von Sternberg called it "a relentless excursion into style"), but with style like this, who needs substance? There is indeed an excess of style in The Scarlet Empress, and perhaps the relentless imagery may have some viewers screaming for mercy by the end. To compensate for small sets, von Sternberg crowds the scenes with furniture, décor and camera trickery. The camera work and editing is fluid, and includes careful use of montage, superimposition, aerial angles, long tracking shots and a meticulous attention to detail (to give two examples, there are the dogs that start up and run away when the dinner guests smash their glasses on the floor, and there is the diner who bites off the nose of a pig's head). Of course the real Russia of this period was not nearly as backward as von Sternberg portrays it. Why does von Sternberg wish us to form the view that Russia was a brutal and primitive country? The answer, I suspect, is Communism. While the Cold War had not yet begun, the West was already afraid of this new Bolshevik state. Von Sternberg had portrayed Russia in a negative light in an earlier film, The Last Command. Here a corrupt and oppressive Czarist regime gives way to the savagery of mob rule as the Communists seize power. The Scarlet Empress paints a similar picture of a country in which violence is commonplace. In an early montage, von Sternberg shows a wide range of atrocities committed by earlier leaders, including torture, rape, whipping, burning people alive, and using one man as the clapper in a bell. There are many scenes of bells ringing in the film, perhaps intended to remind us of this early scene, and to ensure that we associate Russia with this kind of cruelty. Also of interest are the brief glimpses of bare-breasted women that von Sternberg somehow got past the censors. Von Sternberg places an intense focus is on Marlene Dietrich. He has little interest in crowd scenes or other actors, and saves his best compositions for her. The camera makes love to Dietrich. Her face is always well-lit, and von Sternberg offers plenty of flattering close-ups. Sometimes her face is viewed through a veil. Is there a symbolic point here? I suspect not. I imagine that von Sternberg simply thought that she looked fetching while wearing a veil. Nonetheless there is always a sense of utter absurdity running through the film, and von Sternberg does not spare Dietrich from this. Her clothes are a bizarre mass of furs, feather and jewellery, and each outfit becomes more ridiculous than the last one. Von Sternberg has fun with one of Dietrich's outfits. When Catherine wishes to hide a pendant from sight, she finds she is struggling to do so because her elaborate outfit has no pockets. Of course the actors in general are dressed in bizarre clothing. Thick layers of clothing cover them. Tall men stalk the set wearing oversized hats. Somehow the actors in the film are always buried under their clothes, or dwarfed by the large and overcrowded sets. The palace doors are huge, impractical edifices that require two men, or six struggling women, to open and close them. As for the sets employed by Josef von Sternberg, has there ever been anything this outrageous on our screens before or since? Everywhere there are candle-holders in the shape of contorted gargoyles that look as if they are being tortured, and each gargoyle holds just one candle. A skeleton hangs over the banquet table, and the chairs of the council room are adorned with images of giant figures holding their heads in their hands. At the heart of this peculiar imagery is the Queen of Kitsch herself, Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich fully relishes the sexually suggestive dialogue and perverse antics of her character. While Peter enjoys playing with his toy soldiers, Catherine prefers to play with actual soldiers. When Catherine takes time to inspect her troops, it is not their weaponry, deportment or discipline that interests her. Meeting the night guard, she slinkily suggests, "It must be cold at night… sometimes". As Catherine remarks, "I think I have weapons far more powerful than any Russian state machine." I am not entirely sure how von Sternberg managed to get away with putting so many perverse and blatantly sexual scenes in a film that was close on the time when the Hays Code was seeking to remove immoral content from cinema. I am only glad that he did. The Scarlet Empress is a deliriously cheeky slab of pseudo-history, and more fun than 50 conventional biopics put together. I wrote a longer appreciation of The Scarlet Empress on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2021/10/22/the-scarlet-empress-1934/

By all accounts Catherine the Great was one remarkable woman. The Queen Consort of Czar Peter III of Russia, she got the throne from him in a palace coup d'etat and ruled for 33 years. She was also a woman of some lusty sexual appetites just like the woman who portrays her in The Scarlet Empress. It's what distinguishes The Scarlet Empress from the Alexander Korda production of Catherine The Great that starred Elizabeth Bergner and came out the same time. Both tell the same story from young Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst chosen as a bride for the Russian Tsarevitch. But Bergner plays her almost as an innocent though you see traces of the lusty woman Catherine became. Marlene Dietrich loses her innocence and you see a woman who used sex to get her way whether it was political gain or sexual satisfaction that she wasn't getting from the imbecile who was her husband. As for Czar Peter, though Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. gives a fine performance, we see a psychotic Czar in him. Sam Jaffe is far closer to the truth, the childlike imbecile who was overwhelmed he didn't measure up in the bedroom or the throne room. This film was Jaffe's screen debut, a far cry from Dr. Reifenschneider in The Asphalt Jungle or the High Lama of Shangri-La, all three very different parts. In fact historians and scholars debate to this day whether Paul who succeeded his mother was Peter's child or was sired by one of Catherine's many lovers. Gavin Gordon and John Davis Lodge play two of her lovers. Lodge was a man like Ronald Reagan who made it big in two different careers. A member of THE Lodge family of Massachusetts, the younger brother of Henry Cabot Lodge, Ike's UN Ambassador, this Lodge left the law for acting and then after Navy service in World War II became a Congressman, Governor of Connecticut, and Ambassador to Spain. To me it's tossup between Flora Robson in Catherine the Great and Louise Dresser as to who the better Empress Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the daughter of Peter the Great, aunt of Sam Jaffe. Her appetites were as big as Catherine's, but her ruthlessness somewhat less. Like Elizabeth I of England, she never married and produced an heir to the throne, but also no one bothered to keep up any fiction about the Russian Elizabeth being a virgin. With some footage from Ernst Lubitsch's silent classic The Patriot, Joseph Von Sternberg crafted one of the better efforts from his collaboration with Marlene Dietrich. He also drove the Paramount Pictures bean counters absolutely crazy by going over budget. The Scarlet Empress was expensive and looks expensive. Von Sternberg spent Paramount's money in a way they could only justify with Cecil B. DeMille. Von Sterberg made good use of music to cover many stretches of no dialog. And after seven years of talking pictures, he also used title cards and effectively when 99% of films had dropped them for good.

In von Sternberg's Russia, no individual of focus isn't foregrounded by a flag, or some mesh, or part of a strange statue, or Rublev-esque religious illustrations, or just good old fashioned poles or candle sticks. This is so often the case in all of these films, but this time... it's nothing short of breathtaking. And also, in its stoney splendor, exhausting. Completely palace-bound, there's a righteously suffocating sensation about The Scarlet Empress. The wardrobe is elaborate to the hilt, right on up to the impeccably fuzzy hats. (Travis Banton again, unleashed). There are at least too many people by one-third in at any given royal gathering scene, ornately jamming the frame from all sides with their fancy hair, their hoop dresses, their military accoutrements, their precision placements, the decor and the decorum. This is the filmmaker at the height of his powers, truly cut loose and untethered from the reality of the story he's chosen to depict and any studio-mandated boundaries. May horses clop over those things, twice each day and once again on Sunday!!

Excellent historical drama, lavishly produced and wonderfully directed.

A decadent spectacle as only Hollywood can do it.

A piece of art! Lovely storytelling.

Historical accuracy be damned. The surreal imagery, camp performances, weird little comedic bits, and Dietrich are the reasons to see this.

The best, GREATEST movie ever made!

It's apparent this film was made soon after talkies started - the facial expressions and other acting is overdone by modern standards. The filming is rich, but long shots of some random activity is not rewarding today. Skip this - one can understand why it wasn't a hit even when it came out

Marlene Dietrich is always a treat, and in this film, the 6th of her 7 collaborations with director Josef von Sternberg, she plays Catherine the Great. The film held my interest, but I have to say, it fell a little short for both Dietrich and von Sternberg. The ornate sets are fabulous, and include Expressionist versions of icons and garish carvings, but von Sternberg relies on them too much. He gives us dramatic action and an overly loud soundtrack, but works from a weak script, and loses the human element in the process. Dietrich flips from being too wide-eyed and open-mouthed in the first half of the film, overplaying innocence, to using her feminine charms to win over support against her husband, Peter III. The film is far from historically accurate, and we also don't see anything of Catherine's astonishing reign, including her love of the arts and her advancement of Russia. What we do see are here responding to "You know that the grand duke isn't exactly pleased with the present state of affairs" by quipping "State of affairs? What affairs? I haven't had an affair for some time" with a sly look in her eyes. It's made clear that she's sleeping around, and in one scene romps happily between two men. Aside from the disservice to Catherine the Great, which I suppose you can ignore because this is Marlene Dietrich after all, even in the context of a vehicle to highlight her eroticism, there is something cold and detached about it, and she's better elsewhere. Worth watching for Dietrich and the wild sets, but temper your expectations.

Given this was pre World War II and precode - no ratings or restrictions- it's fairly intense when you look at the images and sets. Very interesting and worth watching. If you live in CONNECTICUT, you'll see Gov. John David Lodge as Alexi. Given the time period, it's a racey film with nudity and torture with the creepiest looking statues referred to as mummies- not sure if they are to depict torture victims or not. Filmed in black and white, it's really fantastic.

I loved the story. A woman taking over a country with sex. Cool. Oh, and I loved the giant, grotesque sets. And the gauzy fabric motif. And the far-out caricature characters. Peary, in 100 Cult Movies, figures Sternberg was pretty right on with the history, if he condensed things a tad. Peary's essay revels in ideas of control: Sternberg's over the production, and as the key to Dietrich's persona.

http://filmreviewsnsuch.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-scarlet-empress.html

This is a beautiful looking film from Josef von Sternberg that stars Marlene Dietrich. I didn't love the story, but the look of the film is amazing and Dietrich oozes charisma. Definitely worth a watch for classic film buffs!

A course in mise-en-scene unto itself, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlett Empress drenches each frame in details in a way that is thoroughly baroque yet never cluttered or random. Every detail is always in place as he blends this baroque style together with German expressionism to create a film that almost perfectly weds story to environment. The film suffers some from the wooden acting and clunky editing, which are mostly indicative of its status as an early sound film, but his does little to hinder this provocative, surrealistic, and erotically charged exploration of sexuality, identity, and power.

Cramming as much imagery as he physically can into each frame, Sternberg constructs an absolutely gorgeous (and insanely excessive) production that doesn't skimp on the other essentials. Dietrich exhibits exceptional range in her portrayal of the sexually adventurous Catherine the Great, helping to cultivate an ambitious and progressive narrative in which a woman in control of her sexuality is rewarded instead of punished, making The Scarlet Empress a refreshingly non-retrograde piece of classic cinema.

Imagine a staircase leading to an open window. A bright light leaks from its center, white doves flying in in hopes to escape the snowy cruelty of the outside. Flowery confetti fills the atmosphere, spinning around in the circling draft of the wind; a gold silken sheet floats down the staircase with the slink of a python on the prowl. Spotted horses, covered in the furs of their master, stand alongside its initial steps, providing company for the lonely statues that adorn the corridor. As we stumble into this foyer, lost in a labyrinth of style, we're both transfixed and horrified, hypnotized by its incandescent beauty, sickened by its seemingly unrelenting movement. Such disquieting allure infects "The Scarlet Empress", an epic in style over substance that uses the scheme of a biopic to give itself an excuse to call itself a movie. In reality, it's a moving painting: every scene is so crammed with ornate decor (ominous gargoyles, gnarled furniture, eye-clogging ball gowns) it's as though Leonardo Da Vinci was asked to set an empress' likeness in stone and ended up exhausting himself through a lavish series of works, dying from an overworked heart at its conclusion. "The Scarlet Empress" is a carnival of decoration, born as the daughter of a hoarder with a mystical eye and dying as one of Prince's jilted lovers. The film begins beautifully and ends beautifully, but changing is its initial feeling of enchantment, which slowly descends into a pit of contorted exoticism. A terminal case of style over substance can sometimes work, but "The Scarlet Empress" is all style and no substance, the style being the result of a drug-induced fever dream. It's as if von Sternberg purchased a studio apartment and decided to fill it with a family of hot pink elephants. But the film is made with a great deal of sensibility, and that's why its cloying ornamentation endures as such a lastingly daring experiment 80+ years later. So much of its outrageousness is done for the sake of simply doing it - doors are so meaty they require six well-dressed women to open them; Marlene Dietrich changes outfits at such an obsessive pace that loudness becomes a given, untouchable furs become a benchmark. Von Sternberg knows that these things provide for interesting fixtures to the eye, and is relentless with how much is put onto the screen. It's a conscious dedication, and it's riveting, however tiring it eventually becomes. "The Scarlet Empress" is a "biopic", its heroine being Catherine the Great, portrayed by a meticulously photographed Dietrich. The film focuses on her transformation from innocent high society daughter to supremely sexual, ultra-cruel dominatrix. She is forced to marry the idiotic Peter (Sam Jaffe), but as her marriage progresses the more she coats in her confidence, lining up man after man to fulfill her most dreamy of desires. The movie isn't a precisely researched source for the history books; it's a vehicle in which von Sternberg is able to go mad with every stylistic inhibition he has ever repressed, a vehicle for Dietrich to seal herself as a screen vamp for an eternity. She does not have to be an actress here - von Sternberg fondles her with his camera, bringing an unseen animal attraction to her erotic face, placing her in a room as though she is the center of the assorted configurations of decoration. "The Scarlet Empress" was released just as the Hays Code was beginning to prosper, allowing for sexuality to ooze off the screen while retaining a snarky sense of bawdy humor. Dietrich is an actress whose persona feeds on sensuality - a film like this suits both her and von Sternberg's ebullient talents. With no story to speak of, the film often leans toward the unexciting (style can only enrapture for so long before it begins to wane), but it's momentous that the movie, almost a century old, was so ballsy in its design in a time where money spoke and artistry started as a whisper.

First time seeing this. Easily Dietrich and von Sternberg's best film. The rise of Catherine the Great is dramaticised here. It's quite the trip, with double crossings, affairs, and oh yes, countless amazing costume changes for Mz. Dietrich. A hoot. Even the musical score is awesome, something which I hardly comment about.