The Abdication

In the 17th century, Queen Christina of Sweden gives up her Protestant throne and journeys to Rome to embrace Catholicism; her past (possibly chequered) as well as her present motives are examined closely by a Cardinal, with whom she falls in love. Ruth Wolff's adaptation of her play is interesting and literate, but director Anthony Harvey unfortunately strives to make a grand spectacle out of what is basically an intimate two-character stage drama (and so we get stand-alone location shots of cathedrals and castles photographed from all different angles). Christina, having been raised since girlhood with a crown on her head, was apparently brought up like a boy, and so Liv Ullmann has been encouraged to be belligerent and impolite (it works for a while, and the lowering of her voice is initially an exciting change for the actress). Peter Finch is unobtrusive as Cardinal Azzolino; he stays out of Ullmann's way, acknowledging her speeches with pensive little smiles (much the same way Finch did in his scenes with Ullmann the year before in "Lost Horizon"). The film certainly had possibilities as a moving platonic-romance story, but it just misses. Nino Rota's ornate score is too insistent (it draws attention to itself), while the flashbacks to Christina's unhappy life back in Sweden begin to feel like speedbumps. Ullmann's Christina becomes too weepy and 'womanly' after declaring her love for Cardinal Finch, though their final scene together is actually quite lovely, meaning the movie does work on occasion. ** from ****

Queen Christina of Sweden (Liv Ullmann) abdicated her throne in 1654. After converting to Catholicism, she travels to Rome to prove herself to the Pope. The Pope is dying. Cardinal Azzolino (Peter Finch) is assigned to evaluate her.

Liv Ullmann is a charismatic beauty. It is a small movie despite its grand locations. I struggle to figure out Christina and her interior personal story for the first hour. This version takes her disputed sexuality to be celibacy. In this way, this is more about the power dynamics within marriages at this time and her religious conversion. It speaks to the changing power dynamics between the sexes in the 70's.

After Greta Garbo abdicated as Queen Christina of Sweden, she caroused through Europe for a year and finally came to Rome, where she expected to be instructed in Catholicism by the Pope. Somewhere along the way, however, she had become Liv Ullman, and now had to pass Peter Finch as Cardinal Azzolino. Is she sincere?

Peter Finch plays his role as if he's Laurence Harvey: dry, repressed, intellectual and prosecutorial, while Miss Ullman dances around him, serious and light-hearted, all over the shop emotionally. It's just the sort of movie that Anthony Harvey had directed with A LION IN WINTER. If the fireworks are not as spectacular, well, neither are the lead actors as big on the screen as Hepburn and O'Toole. This pair play guarded characters who show through in flashes, and must compete not only with their own natural beauty, but the spectacular location shots. It's a movie that requires a dedicated and attentive viewer.

I can see how it must have worked sensationally as a two-actor play by Ruth Wilson. When she opened the script slightly for the big screen, did a fine job. However the results fall slightly short of the director's earlier masterpiece. It's a fine movie, but definitely not one to watch on a small screen.

I'm really not a Liv Ullmann fan, but I was really curious to see The Abdication because of the premise. Made the year after Lost Horizon, she teamed up again with her costar Peter Finch and had scorching chemistry. It was a surprising film, and thought provoking, so if you're interested in religious dramas, you'll want to check it out.

Peter plays a priest, and before you think he has way too much emotion, sex appeal, and bad boy vibes to be convincing, just wait. Liv plays Queen Christina, rebellious, independent, and unpredictable. She abdicates her throne and travels to Rome to study and convert to Catholicism. Because of her wild streak, the Church doesn't take her seriously. They think she's just trying it out as one of her whims, and Peter is tasked with finding out if she is in earnest. Is it really that good of an idea to send a good-looking, passionate priest to a promiscuous, passionate woman? Probably not. The sparks fly, and we start to wonder who is converting and who is abdicating. Even though I don't usually like her, I'd definitely recommend this one.

This film was shown once on local TV in the early 1980s (but I was too young to watch it) and then fell completely off the radar in the interim; however, thanks to the God-sent overhaul that TCM UK has finally decided to give its long-decaying schedule of endlessly-repeated titles, I was able to finally catch up with it after some 25 odd years! Not because the film has any kind of reputation per se but its credentials are certainly impeccable and European History has always been one of my favorite subjects in school (and one in which I excelled in). The story of Sweden's Queen Christina had already been dealt with magnificently by Rouben Mamoulian in his eponymous 1933 film which had provided Greta Garbo with arguably her greatest role; this being made a good 40 permissive years later, the independent-minded Protestant monarch (Liv Ullmann) renounces her faith and throne to sneak into the Vatican and pour out her lesbian longings for a childhood friend onto a Roman Catholic Cardinal (Peter Finch) engaged to investigate her well-documented wanton ways and her newly-professed piety! The two stars, reunited a year after Ross Hunter's maligned 1973 musical version of LOST HORIZION, are practically the whole show here despite being surrounded by opulent sets and a cast of thespian notables: Cyril Cusack (as Christina's guardian), Graham Crowden (as a fellow Cardinal), Edward Underdown and Kathleen Byron (as, respectively, Christina's chivalrous father and embittered mother) and diminutive Michael Dunn (in his last film as Christina's enigmatic servant). Celebrated cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth shoots the opening abdication scenes in moody candlelight, bathes the film in mist during Christina's childhood reminiscences and lends it a sunny look during her liberated passages; Nino Rota's music score is also appropriately sensitive or soaring according to the film's moods. Incidentally, another failed historical/religious charade featuring Liv Ullmann I would like to see is Michael Anderson's POPE JOAN (1972)…who knows if TCM UK will likewise surprise me and provide the opportunity to catch up with it in the not-too-distant future?