Mayerling

The dashing Omar Sharif was born to be a crown-prince, or at least look the part to perfection (is he of royal Egyptian blood?), while Catherine Deneuve takes your breath away in every scene she's in, most notably as they watch "Giselle" at the theater. An Oedipus complex is hinted at here, and I suppose not all sons (not even only sons!) kiss their mothers on the lips (or it could be an Austrian thing, who knows?). But given his lifestyle of high living, promiscuity and dalliances with radical politics, coupled by an addiction to morphine and the off-chance of insanity in the blood, I don't think the end was as bittersweet and romantic as the movie portrayed it to be. No doubt the prince was a depressed, politically-impotent man who saw no promise in a future which included a loveless marriage, a domineering father and a mother who was never there--no big deal to most, but this was an only child used to getting his way most of the time. I'm sure Maria Vetsera, practically a child in love for the first time, was only too flattered to have been chosen by the prince to die with him. All in the name of love, of course.