The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Director:

Josef von Sternberg

Writers:

Catherine II (diary)
Manuel Komroff (diary arranger)

Release Date:

15 September 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance

Tagline:

The Reigning Beauty of the Screen!

Plot:

Young Princess Sophia of Germany is taken to Russia to marry the half-wit Grand Duke Peter, son of the Empress...

Plot Keywords:

Empress | Russia | Catherine The Great | Duke | Germany

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Marlene Dietrich	...	Princess Sophia Frederica / Catherine II
John Lodge	...	Count Alexei
Sam Jaffe	...	Grand Duke Peter
Louise Dresser	...	Empress Elizabeth Petrovna
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Prince August
Gavin Gordon	...	Capt. Gregori Orloff
Olive Tell	...	Princess Johanna Elizabeth
Ruthelma Stevens	...	Countess Elizabeth 'Lizzie'
Davison Clark	...	Archimandrite Simeon Todorsky / Arch-Episcope
Erville Alderson	...	Chancelor Alexei Bestuchef
Philip Sleeman	...	Count Lestoq (as Phillip Sleeman)
Marie Wells	...	Marie Tshoglokof
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski	...	Ivan Shuvolov (as Hans von Twardowski)
Gerald Fielding	...	Lt. Dmitri
Maria Riva	...	Sophia as a child (as Maria)

Also Known As:

Catherine the Great (USA) (working title)
A Imperatriz Vermelha (Portugal) [pt]
Capricho imperial (Spain) [es]
Den røde kejserinde (Denmark) [da]
Die große Zarin (Germany) [de]
Die scharlachrote Kaiserin (Germany) [de]
I tragiki Tsarina (Greece) [el]
Intohimojen keisarinna (Finland) [fi]
L'impératrice rouge (France) [fr]
L'imperatrice Caterina (Italy) [it]
Scarlet Empress (Finland) [fi]
Zarewna (Austria) [de]

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #16) | France:U (re-release)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Catherine stamps with her foot on the gold locket containing the portrait of Count Alexei, smashing it, she then flings it out of the window. The camera follows it as it falls slowly, glistening in the moonlight, through the branches of the tree outside her window, but it is completely undamaged.

Quotes:

Grand Duke Peter: I want to play with my toys!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Stella (2008)

Soundtrack:

Marche Slave

Wow

The equine theme running through this bizarre, campy, creepy, cynical, disturbingly beautiful bio-pic is quite significant, given the facts of the life and death of Catherine the Great, culminating in the wildly over-the-top final shot. This movie just drips with European social and sexual decadence, and also with incredibly lavish and languid imagery throughout. Dietrich and von Sternberg seem determined to prove that they could make the transformation of a naive romantic girl into a lascivious power-mad monarch somehow heroic, and also that American audiences would lap it up while denying the depth of the depravity they were embracing. This movie succeeds on every level, especially the subversive one...