Mayerling

'Mayerling' (1936)

Opening thoughts: There were plenty of reasons for seeing 'Mayerling'. Have always loved period dramas, and especially when it is a period of history that really piques a lot of interest. Having gained a major interest in Austrian royalty since my holiday to Vienna last year (especially Empress Elisabeth, aka Sissi), this was one such period. It also intrigued seeing Charles Boyer in an early role and the kind that he became well known for and for seeing one of Anatole Litvak's early films.

'Mayerling' is a very, very good film indeed. Not perfection, but there are numerous good things and most of those good things are actually exceptional. Of the two 'Mayerling' films seen, the other being the one from the 50s, this is infinitely better with it actually being good (was underwhelmed by the other). It is very easy to see why Boyer became a major international star after this and the film is one of Litvak's best and most interesting early films (the film that also helped make his career bigger), as far as his films in general go it's not quite 'All This and Heaven Too' and especially 'The Snake Pit' but it is in the better end.

Bad things: It isn't perfect. Will agree that Gabrielle Dorziat wasn't right for Elisabeth, she came over as too old and didn't get enough of the ahead of the time astonishing beauty that Elisabeth was famous for the struggles she faced in her life.

Also thought that the lead up to the tragic conclusion was too overlong and dragged out.

Good things: However, 'Mayerling' looks absolutely ravishing, with sumptuous costume designs and art direction and the photography is some of the most beautiful of any film from the late 30s. Was not sure as to whether Arthur Honegger's music would gel stylistically and in mood, but it is suitably dramatic without being bombastic or too melodramatic and is quite lush. Litvak's direction is some of his most stylish and sensitive.

Furthermore, the script is thought provoking and doesn't go into soap opera territory too much. There may be cliches here but they are not done in too cliched a manner. The story always intrigues, even in the slower patches, and has emotional impact and very passionate romance. The conclusion itself is very moving and the love is very deeply felt.

Boyer and Danielle Darrieux are both perfectly cast, giving performances of great dignity and passion. Their chemistry smolders. The supporting cast are excellent too, with reservations had for only Dorziat.

Concluding thoughts: Overall, very, very good.

8/10.

Motion pictures from overseas were a tough sell for American theaters in the mid-1930s. Even though movies from France, Germany, Italy among others were shown in selected theaters in the United States, none caught the attention of the public accustomed to Hollywood glossy productions. When Pax Films imported the French movie, February 1936 "Mayerling," American viewers were enthralled about its story of a royal murder-suicide.

"Mayerling" became the first international hit with sound in cinema (with a couple of British pictures the exception). The film's popularity made French actor Charles Boyer a major world-wide movie star, and a barrage of offers from Hollywood studios for Anatole Litvak cascaded on its director. One reviewer labeled the film as "one of the most compelling love stories the cinema has produced," and the co-founder of the American Ballet, Lincoln Kirstein wrote it is "a kind of standard for the romantic film in an historical setting." The movie's title derives from the small town in Austria where Rudolf, the Crown Prince of Austria (Boyer), shot and killed his 17-year-old mistress, baroness Mary Vetsera (Danielle Darrieux) at his hunting lodge in January 1889. Rudolf was the only son to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and had been in an unhappy marriage to a princess from Belgium before meeting Mary. Compounding the royal couple's stress was Rudolf had transmitted the clap to his wife as a result of his many affairs.

Actress Darrieux, as Mary Vetsera, was almost the same age of the real-life teenager who was shot by the prince before he took his own life. Her four-year film career to this point resulted in only small parts, but "Mayerling" brought her international fame. Receiving a number of offers from Hollywood, Darrieux and Litvak traveled together to explore their opportunities in Tinseltown. Whereas the film director remained in California where he excelled in directing several highly-regarded films, Darrieux was in only one Universal Pictures film, 1938 'The Rage of Paris,' before returning to Europe. Darrieux eventually became one of France's most popular movie actresses with a career spanning eight decades, lasting until 2010.

Boyer, who had earlier spent a short time in Hollywood, returned to California to enjoy a very rewarding life in films. The book the film's plot was based on, Claude Anet's 'Idyll's End,' served as the basis for Litvak revisiting the tragic tale in his 1957 'Mayerling' with Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn. MGM pounced on the bandwagon in 1968 in its version of "Mayerling" with Omar Sharif, Catherine Deneuve, James Mason and Ava Gardner.

It's ironic Boyer played a character who kills himself over a woman. The actor met and married British actress Pat Paterson just before making "Mayerling," a marriage that lasted 44 years. He was so distraught over her death in August 1978, that he took his own life with an overdose of Seconal two days after she passed away. As for the real Crown Prince Rudolf, his death left his father, Franz Joseph, to seek an alternative when he had no other sons to give the title. The emperor's heir apparent to the Austria-Hungry throne turned out to be his nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who, in 1914 was shot and killed in Sarajevo, setting off World War One.

The story of the perceived (other conspiracy theories are available!) double-suicide of Archduke Rudolph of Austria and his teenage lover Baroness Marie Vetsera at Mayerling in 1889 is one of the great royal dynastic tragedies of the 19th Century and has even been named a contributory factor in the outbreak of the First World War some 25 years later.

In this French-language version by Ukranian director Anatole Litvak, we get a highly-romanticised version of the story with Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux as the star-crossed but ill-fated lovers.

The direction throughout is stylish and tasteful, Litvak impressing in his recreation of the Viennese Court with its surface splendour barely concealing the jostling for position and rumour-mongering beneath the facade. Boyer and Darrieux are excellent in their lead roles, his character the reforming, rebellious heir to the throne, unhappy in his arranged marriage and she the youthful, highly-impressionable innocent caught up in the first great passion of her life.

The concluding climax is sensitively and humanely depicted too with my only major criticisms of the film being an over-reliance on the use of the no-doubt in-vogue montage sequences and a tendency to slightly overstay the camera's welcome in certain scenes.

Nevertheless, this was a fine retelling of the notorious scandal and it's no surprise that its artistic and commercial success lured director Litvak to Hollywood where he enjoyed a distinguished career for many years.

Film lovers of a certain age will remember the cine-clubs and cinema societies where we cut our teeth on so many of the great classics. And, in this age of digital restoration and director's cuts, they will remember with ghastly fondness the `beater print'-a worn 16mm reel with hard-to-read subtitles, muddy greys, and blown-out whites. Well, here we have it. `Mayerling' is a beautiful film. Boyer (someone I'm not a fan of) is perfect as the impetuous, passionate prince. Darrieux has less to do but is so adorable you don't mind. Litvak's direction is superb, flitting in amongst the Viennese crowds to find the isolated lovers, the courtly grandeur of a 500-year-old empire, and the little touches that turn a good film great. But `Mayerling' is only available from Timeless Video of North Hollywood, CA. And it's an awful video. Half of the subtitles are below the screen, the scenes are mud, and the sound is so distorted you'd think you were watching a 1929 film. What to do? First off, don't buy *anything* from Timeless Video. Then wait for someone to realize a truly beautiful DVD of this great movie. Watching it in its current shape would merely spoil it for you.

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?