Diagonaldi Very well executed

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

TheLittleSongbird The penultimate collaboration of the iconic and justifiably famous partnership of Marlene Dietrich and director Josef Von Sternberg is to me one of their best, also perhaps the most entertaining and most visually beautiful.Historical accuracy is not to be expected here, anybody expecting a truthful account of Catherine the Great's life are better off reading a biography. Taken on its own terms as a film, 'The Scarlet Empress' really impresses and 83 years on is still a great film, what shocked audiences back in 1934 (some of the content is ballsy and ahead of its time) fascinates many now. Where 'The Scarlet Empress' fares least is in the script, some of which going a bit over-the-top on the nonsensical weirdness. Which may disappoint anybody who loved the archness and sophistication of the writing of other Dietrich/Sternberg films like 'Shanghai Express'.Otherwise, any debits are far outweighed by the strengths and the size of those strengths. Visually, 'The Scarlet Empress' looks amazing, the production design is staggering in its ornate richness, the cinematography is classy and atmospheric while evoking typically and shockingly lustrous images and the use of light and shadow in the lighting is trademark Sternberg (who also directs as adroitly as ever).Another element that amazes is the music. Not just the music itself, with pieces of Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Wagner with some of their most famous work and justly so, but also the way it was used. It's constant but music that could easily have been little more than clumsily inserted "popular classical music favourites" has real atmosphere and dramatic power and is used so cleverly. For back in 1934 this use of music was certainly unique, and even now in 2017 'The Scarlet Empress' continues to be one of the most ingenious uses of music, classical or otherwise, on film.Regardless of any historical inaccuracy, the story is entertaining in its outrageousness while also capturing a real sense of period, a sense of wonder unique regardless of any decade or era and the lusts and intrigues of the court. What could have been completely thankless or caricature characters are interesting and beautifully played. Dietrich certainly lives up to the film's tag-line, she has had so many unforgettable moments on film and her performance in 'The Scarlet Empress' remains her at her most enviously luminous. She is also very commanding on screen, confident and moving even if at times the innocence could have had a softer touch.She is very well supported by a thrillingly demented but also soulful Sam Jaffe and a formidable Louise Dresser. John Lodge holds up better on repeat viewing, while nowhere near in the same league as Dietrich, Jaffe and Dresser in no way does he disgrace himself either, far from it.In summary, a great film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Dalbert Pringle Boasting a supporting cast of 1000 extras - 1934's "The Scarlet Empress" was, to me, nothing but a stuffy, boring, pretentious costume drama which was clearly intended as a vehicle to glorify Marlene Dietrich and present her as a serious dramatic actress.Apparently based on the actual diary entries of Catherine II - I thought that (under the heavy-handed direction of that lunatic eccentric, Josef Von Sternberg) ""The Scarlet Empress" (with its million dollar budget), pretty much, amounted to being nothing but a total mockery of Russian history from start to finish.This was clearly one of those films that (because it took itself so bloody serious) ended up being downright laughable, in the long run.*Note* - As expected - Marlene Dietrich does her celebrated "man-drag" shtick in this picture, as well. (Ho-hum!)

fbarthet I saw "The Scarlet Empress" many times. On TV, in movie theaters. I cannot simply imagine the world without that film, certainly in my Top Ten Favourites list.Style is the first word that came to my mind when I think of von Sternberg (he added the von to his name but he clearly deserves it). And "The Scarlet Empress' is purely "un exercice de style". People often use the concept of "Expressionism" to describe the photography or the ambiance of the film but it is simply because it is not a classical Hollywood movie in style or in atmosphere. There is nothing strictly "Expressionist" in "The Scarlet Empress" as the expression of emotions is definitely secondary to the creation of a style as a "raison d'etre". The early years of Catherine the Great (before she even become Catherine the Great) as described by von Sternberg are not corresponding to a strict historical version. This is not the point. This is about the transformation of a woman from a tender, naive and gentle "Prussian rose" into a Machiavelian, merciless praying-mantis, cold as steel, hot as Hell. It is probably a bit stretched, but I find a lot of similarities between the depiction of how Sophia Frederica became Catherine the Great and the personal story of Marlene Dietrich. When she was chosen by von Sternberg for the role of Lola Lola, she was active in German show business for years. At that time, she was a bit plump, more "the girl next door" than "she who must be obeyed". Then, "Der Blaue Engel". Then Hollywood, a few more movies with her "creator" and the woman became Legend, something out of this world.in a way, the character played (quite well) by John Lodge reminds me of von Sternberg in front of Marlene. When Sophia Frederica sees the handsome, dashing and fascinating Russian envoy, it is Marlene at the time where she was just another actress in the boiling last years of the Weimar Republic. The Count seduces her, makes her falling for him (easily after she discovered her future husband is a raving maniac looking like a monkey on acid). And then, the brutal wake-up: he is the lover of the reigning empress! The little princess throws her broken heart in the sewer and decides to reject everything she was previously: a bit like what did "La" Dietrich after she arrived in Hollywood. And this is were I see the comparison between the character of John Lodge and von Sternberg. Von Sternberg tried to keep the evasive Marlene under his spell for years, making six more movies with (for) her. But she was far away already, long ago. And the face of John Lodge when he discovers than he will never be Catherine the Great's lover, simply because he played with her heart and betrayed her naive love, is a kind of symbol of the filmmaker losing his grip on his creature. But was she ever HIS creature?Of course, Marlene dominates the film. She is radiant, more beautiful and glamorous than in any other movie. She is also excellent. She plays, at 33, the young, virginal princess very convincingly, her great doe-like eyes constantly moving from one surprise to another. After the betrayal of the man she thinks she loves, she becomes a kind of Nietschian character, bigger than life, cynical and ruthless. But the close-up of her face, after she dismissed John Lodge and now waits for the Count Orlov, her new caprice, shows a distressed woman. A woman who was betrayed by her first love, and whose revenge is bitter-sweet, if not pathetic.The other actors are all brilliant but Louise Dresser as the empress Elisabeth and Sam Jaffe as the Grand Duke Peter, respectively mother in law and husband of Catherine, are particularly outstanding. Louise Dresser plays herself a cynical and ruthless empress who knows her weaknesses but put the destiny of Russia about everything. Sam Jaffe, well, was the character actor by excellence, able to play a Russian Grand Duke or Gunga Din. His Peter is an absolute maniac but he manages to make him more pathetic and pitiful than monstrous. In the end, he is a poor fellow too small for his own crown. You feel almost sorry for him when he dies.Von Sternberg acted as a real demiurge in this movie, controlling/creating everything: lights, camera angles and moves, sets and costumes. It gives to the movie this extraordinary atmosphere not only of total art but of fantasy as well (the scenes of rapes and tortures could not have been made six months later, many thanks to the Hays Code). It is extremely claustrophobic in spite of the size of the sets as almost all the action occurs in the imperial palace which looks like a Gothic castle, Russian style.During the wedding scene, one cannot forget the close-up on Marlene's face, her eyes terrified and fascinated as well, and the flame of the candle in her hand bending under her invisible breath, like a heartbeat.

Anthony Dolphin (santasprees) All the mutually-mated and mutated blue blood of the courts of Europe must have curdled into a brain-stunting stew long before 1760, so its fitting that Von Sternberg's vision of the Russian dynasty is so damaged and deranged, importing fresh Prussian genes (Dietrich as Catherine) to arrest the degenerative slide. Sam Jaffe's Grand Duke Peter (later, briefly, the Emperor Peter III) is Harpo Marx cross bred with Tiny Tim on the Island of Dr Moreau. Marlene Dietrich's Catherine, after an initial doe-eyed turn as an innocent, is an automaton of desire, arousing with one hand, castrating with the other, at once a vixen and a shrew shot through gauze and candles by a permanently stimulated lens. At its (wordless) best, a feast of ragingly intemperate psycho-sexual and psycho-historical motifs in a wobbly frame.