Mayerling

In my reviews of the 1968 Terence Young version,I've already told my thoughts on the historical facts.There's no need to get back on it:suffice to say the true story was not as romantic as sensitive people still thinks so today.

Anatole Litvak does not pass over in silence Rudolph's dissoluteness, as two orgy scenes testify.Besides,Charles Boyer is a much better archduke than Omar Shariff.Ditto Danielle Darrieux who was about 20 (whereas Catherine Deneuve was nearing 25 when she played Mary),thus a more credible baroness Vetsera .Both versions,it's important to notice ,are from Claude Anet's NOVEL.It's not a historian's work and it should be not looked upon so.

However,Litvak is a better director than Terence Young.With a much smaller budget,and of course without the 1968 technical aids ,he works wonders :the tiny church where Rudolph meets Mary in half-light creates a mystical and heathen atmosphere at once.The night at the opera house is dazzling.To conclude the scene of the ball at the German embassy ,the artist uses a stunning tracking out which leaves the swirling twirling dancers,then stops on a glass door adorned with the Habsburg emblem.Rudolphe ,firing at his reflection in a mirror is an adequate metaphor.

A minor flaw:Gabrielle Dorziat is completely miscast as Sissi ,Rudolph's mother:she was one of the most beautiful women of her time (we can see the magnificent Winterhalter portraits at the beginning of the movie).At fifty,when the Mayerling tragedy occurred,her beauty was still incomparable.She had nothing to do with the aging dowager we see on the screen (in Young 's version,it's Ava Gardner!)

And hats off to Danielle Darrieux who ,sixty-four years after "Mayerling" ,recently triumphed in "8 femmes",a blockbuster in France.Any advance?