Based on a play by Victorien Sardou which was performed on stage by Sarah Bernhardt. The drama was much talked about at the time and even performed in London ;today it's not as popular as Sardou's comedy "madame sans-gêne ",by a long shot .
I guess the 1934 movie is too short (75 min) to do this play justice;there are too many secondary characters ,and it's difficult to tell them apart .
Although it's not mentioned , it takes place under the reign of Alexander the Second of Russia ,where the assassination attempts run rampant. The czar himself was eventually killed.
A princess ,Fedora , wants to avenge the death of her fiancé ,captain Vladimir ; it will also be a political mission, for the government wants the assassin to be executed. So she leaves Saint-Petersburg for Moscow where he has fled and she begins to seduce him ; as such is often the case in melodramas ,she falls for the man she's in charge of doing away with .
But you should never go by appearances. At the.end of the movie ,she's no longer a frivolous socialite ,acknowledging that sometimes the personal is personal-as well as political ;the best moment is an unusually inventive flashback ,shown in the frame of a picture .And eventually all she does backfires on her.
Marie Bell was essentially a stage actress and her best movie remains Duvivier's "carnet de bal" .
