Marie Antoinette
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Movie Reviews of Marie Antoinette
Movie Review: A Classic Movie - Marie Antoinette
Summary: 5 Stars
Norma Shearer is believable the way she portrays a giddy girl becoming a self indulgent and finally down-trodden queen. Anita Louise is really outstanding in her role of the beautiful Princess de Lamballe and Robert Morley correctly plays poor Louis XVI. They worked well together in their portrayal of the doomed trio and Tyrone Power was superb as Count Ferson.Movie Review: NORMA SHEARER SHINES!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I BET MANY PEOPLE HAVE NOT HEARD OF NORMA SHEARER THESE DAYS. I KNOW I HADN'T HEARD MUCH ABOUT HER. BUT, SHE REALLY "SHINES" IN THIS LOVELY MOVIE! IN FACT, ALL THE PERFORMANCES ARE VERY GREAT! THIS MOVIE IS "TIMELESS" REALLY! RECOMMENDED VERY HIGHLY!!! Boland7214@aol.comMovie Review: feed back
Summary: 5 Stars
very happy with service, exactly what i wanted, plays in my region 4 area,prompt delivery, looking forward to further purchases, beats watching on vhs,if youre into gone with the wind type movies, this is on same linesMovie Review: Shearer Lets Them Eat Cake in a Most Opulent MGM Production
Summary: 4 Stars
It's somewhat disheartening to find out after viewing this lavish black-and-white 1938 MGM epic that it was intended to be filmed in color. Budget overruns made this impossible at the time, but otherwise the studio pulled out all the stops to make this significant slice of fictionalized French history into a star vehicle for its reigning queen, Norma Shearer. With all its pomp and circumstance directed lugubriously by studio journeyman W.S. Van Dyke, the film's self-importance gets wearing over its lengthy 160-minute running time. However, the movie also manages character arcs and a historical context rather lacking in Sofia Coppola's recent new-wave revisionist portrayal. That's primarily because Coppola's film covers little more than one-half of the story covered here. The new 2006 DVD does justice to the lavish film with a pristine print transfer that makes it easy to enjoy all the period detail recreated by the craftsmen on the MGM back lot, including a replication of Versailles that was apparently twice the size of the actual palace.
The two-plus decade-long story begins with the young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette excited to find out she is to be married to the Dauphin of France, Louis XVI, and destined to become that country's queen. Her enthusiasm dissipates as her intended turns out to be a bulbous social misfit uninterested in leading the country or consummating the marriage. In the meantime, his father Louis XV carries on with the vulgar Madame du Barry, while Marie remains cloistered in Versailles. The ambitious Duke Philippe d'Orleans convinces Marie to dive headlong into the Paris social scene to raise her profile. This leads to her meeting with the dashing Count Axel de Fersen of Sweden, a relationship that moves from flirtatious to romantic to indispensable.
However, frustrated after four years by the lack of an heir and spurred on by his mistress, Louis XV decides to annul the marriage and send Marie back to Austria. By fate, Louis XV dies, and Louis XVI and Marie become France's ruling monarchs. But they are faced with increasing hostility caused by France's burgeoning economic woes and compounded by a jewelry conspiracy against Marie. With little resistance, the peasants storm the palace to hold the royal family captive. An escape plan is hatched, and the rest of the story shows the road to the inevitable fate of the monarchy. This is the type of luxuriant epic that actually has an overture, an intermission and exit music (and an opportunity to cut eleven minutes off the running time when you fast forward over these chapters).
Shearer dominates the show from start to finish, and her innate theatricality can be a rather acquired taste. In the first half, although photographed most flatteringly at age 38, she overdoes the character's youthful zeal but manages moments of sincerity. When Marie becomes a social gadfly, Shearer's naturally impervious manner seems to suit the extravagance of her character, but she is burdened by the pacing of the film's plodding first half, with the primary focus on the opulent sets and endless dialogue scenes. In the second half, however, when Marie's fate becomes sealed, the actress becomes genuinely sublime even in the most predictably melodramatic scenes. This is when you begin to realize why she was Queen of MGM at the time.
Although a very young and handsome Tyrone Power is her nominal co-star as Fersen, he has little to do but be appropriately smitten with Marie and conveniently show up at the most pivotal moments of crises. In his film debut, Robert Morley fares better as the awkward Louis XVI as he moves his initially pitiable character to more humanistic territory through the course of the story. A character actress not known for historical roles, Gladys George makes a deliciously nasty du Barry. Unfortunately, with his painted eyebrows and constant sneer, Joseph Schildkraut makes d'Orleans smarmy without real depth, while John Barrymore is so over-the-top hammy as Louis XV that one wonders whether someone told him that this was not meant to be a farce. All the exterior elements - Adrian's elaborate costumes, Cedric Gibbons' period art direction, William H. Daniels' sharp cinematography - are grade-A MGM product.
The DVD comes with three brief extras - two shorts and a theatrical trailer that implies initial box office returns from its road show engagements must have been somewhat disappointing. The first short, "Hollywood Goes to Town", shows the elaborate preparations for the premiere of "Marie Antoinette" including footage from the premiere itself. The second, "Another Romance of Celluloid", has an intriguing preface stating how racially insensitive portrayals are included in the short. This amounts to shots of black sharecroppers picking cotton to show how it eventually becomes film stock, again using "Marie Antoinette" as the prototype, and then the featurette becomes an advertisement for MGM's announced productions schedule for 1938 including some films that were never realized. The lengthy film is an interesting curio worth seeing and sometimes even more than that.
Movie Review: An elaborate costume masterpiece...
Summary: 4 Stars
The Austrian archduchess Marie Antoinette (Norma Shearer) is seen being married off by her mother Maria Theresa (Alma Kruger), the Empress of Austria, to the immature dauphin Louis (Robert Morley) grandson of France's king Louis XV (John Barrymore).
She is soon disillusioned at her first meeting with the timid, uninspiring Louis who proves to be an inattentive husband, frigid in his relations with his young beautiful wife... Louis lacks self-confidence and is completely dominated by his grandfather, King Louis XV... He also is ridiculed by his cunning cousin, the Duke of Orléans (Joseph Schildkraut) and the king's mistress, Madame Du Barry (Gladys George).
On her wedding night, Marie Antoinette is left confused and tearful by Louis, who admits he is incapable of being a husband... She soon becomes a hopeless forsaken figure at Versailles...
Denied the love of a husband and the counsel of trusted friends, Marie Antoinette becomes a pawn in the hands of the dishonest Duke of Orléans - cousin of Louis - who plays her against Du Barry: "Conquer Paris", he said, "and you will conquer Madame Du Barry."
Left into the companionship of a small circle of frivolous court favorites, Marie Antoinette becomes the most lavishly dressed woman in France, losing fortunes at the gambling tables... There she meets a Swedish nobleman with whom she falls in love, the attractive Count Axel de Fersen (Tyrone Power).
When the alliance with Austria is threatened, Marie Antoinette is persuaded by Count de Mercey (Henry Stephenson), her mother's clever ambassador, to give a ball at which she can in public recognize Madame Du Barry... Instead, her insulting manner toward the mistress of the king enrages Louis XV who informs her that he is annulling her marriage and he is sending her back to Austria...
Marie Antoinette goes to the Count de Mercey for help, where she meets there Axel de Fersen who reaffirm his love for her...
The sudden death of Louis XV places her husband on the throne and Marie Antoinette finds herself Queen of France... Fersen, realizing that he could not dare to love a queen, leaves her that night and sails for America...
Marie Antoinette, determined to become a good queen bears a son and a daughter... The king (a loving father) had not sufficient strength of character or power of decision to combat the influence of court factions...
Marie Antoinette's close associations with the more dissipated members of the court aristocracy prompted her enemies to circulate false and insulting reports of her alleged extramarital affairs... These vilifications culminated in the 'Affair of Diamond Necklace' in which the queen was unjustly accused...
Duke of Orléans plots against the throne and becomes a leader in the Revolution... As a result, Marie Antoinette becomes the main target of the popular agitators, and the royal family hostages of the Revolutionary movement...
Count Fersen, hearing of Marie Antoinette's danger, goes to her and arranges an escape from Paris...
Norma Shearer, billed by M.G.M as "The First Lady of the Screen" receives her sixth Oscar nomination for her performance... She plays with dignity the title role of Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate French queen sank to the deepness of cell, tumbrel and guillotine...
Tyrone Power is convincing as the Swedish nobleman who gave the ill-fated monarch romantic surcease...
Robert Morley makes a memorable film debut, playing the feeble-minded Louis XVI - a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination...
John Barrymore plays King Louis XV and in flashing traces of his old sardonic glee, he says: "The state will last my time. After me the deluge!"
Norma Shearer "come-back" picture, is an elaborate costume masterpiece, glamorized in satin wardrobes, elaborate costumes, elegant huge sets... It traces the life of the Austrian princess who becomes queen of France covering her romantic attachment for the Swedish Count Axel de Fersen...