Marie Antoinette

• Director: W.S. Van Dyke
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Historical Epic, Biopic
• Themes: Crowned Heads
• Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut
• Release Year: 1938
• Country: US
• Run Time: 160 minutes

Plot

M.G.M.'s opulent costume drama Marie Antoinette marked a return to the screen after a two-year absence for reigning Queen of M.G.M. Norma Shearer. Shearer plays the title role of an Austrian princess who is married off to Louis Auguste (Robert Morley), the Dauphin of France. Marie, by becoming the Dauphine, finds herself plopped smack in the middle of French palace intrigue between Louis's father King Louis XV (John Barrymore) and his scheming cousin, the Duke of Orleans (Joseph Schildkraut). With Louis unable to consummate his marriage to Marie, she takes to holding elaborate parties and gambling her fortune away. In a casino, she meets the handsome Count Axel de Fersen (Tyrone Power) and they have an affair. But when Louis XV dies and Louis becomes King Louis XVI, Fersen takes his leave, telling her that he could carry on an affair with a dauphine but not the Queen of France. Marie vows to be a great queen and remain loyal to her king. But the Duke of Orleans is plotting against Louis XVI, financing the revolutionary radicals. When the monarchy is overthrown, Louis and Marie are thrown into prison, awaiting execution. But when word gets back to Fersen, he travels back to France in an attempt to rescue Marie. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Review

Stefan Zweig, on whose popular biography this opulent film was based, had great sympathy for the star-crossed Austrian princess who became queen of France mainly to stabilize relations between two crumbling empires. History has generally not been quite as kind although most sources agree on the lady's final acts of bravery. Noblesse, after all, oblige. Like Marie Antoinette, Norma Shearer was a dethroned queen of sorts, her diminutive, workaholic husband Irving Thalberg having for more than a decade been the true power behind the scenes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But Thalberg had died more than a year before production commenced in late December of 1937 and Marie Antoinette was really a final bequest to his widow, a bequest that not even Louis B. Mayer could refuse her. To say that Marie Antoinette is overproduced is merely to state the obvious; was the real Versailles ever really this splendid? But although hundreds of extras mill about ornate sets, the narrative itself remains a bit stuffy. They borrowed Tyrone Power from 20th Century-Fox to play the dashing Von Fersen -- dashing according to Zweig but a description not entirely supported by surviving portraits -- but he is really too young to fill out the character whether in romantic clinches with La Belle Antoinette or as her heroic, if hapless, would-be savior. When all is said and done, neither Shearer nor Power do justice to the age and its decadence. And how could they, existing as they are in a Hollywood Versailles where romance at all times takes precedence over politics. The historic final days of the Bourbons are probably better represented here by the supporting cast: John Barrymore's old roue Louis XV; Joseph Schildkraut's painted and decadent Orleans; Gladys George's scheming but slightly dense Du Barry; and last but far from least, Robert Morley's awkward but well-intentioned Dauphin. The latter's performance remains Marie Antoinette's true tour-de-force and it is one of those Hollywood conundrums that he should lose a best supporting acting Oscar© to Walter Brennan, who won that year for playing Walter Brennan in Kentucky. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Norma Shearer - Marie Antoinette
• Tyrone Power - Count Axel de Fersen
• John Barrymore - Louis XV
• Robert Morley - Louis XVI
• Anita Louise - Princess DeLamballe
• Joseph Schildkraut - Duke of Orleans

Gladys George - Mme. DuBarry; Henry Stephenson - Count Mercey; Cora Witherspoon - Mme. DeNoailles; Barnett Parker - Prince DeRohan; Henry Daniell - La Motte; Leonard Penn - Toulan; Alma Kruger - Empress Maria Theresa; Joseph Calleia - Drouet; George Meeker - Robespierre; Scotty Beckett - Dauphin; Erville Alderson - Passport Official; Richard Alexander - Man with Pike; Trevor Bardette; Robert H. Barrat - Citizen-Officer; Thomas Braidon - Lackey; Al Bridge - Official in Passport Office; John Burton - Lafayette; Mae Busch - Mme. LaMotte; John Butler - Municipal; Frank Campeau - Lemonade Vendor; Lane Chandler - Revolutionary Officer; Dorothy Christy; Wade Crosby - Lanton; Cecil Cunningham - Mme. De Lerchenfeld; Denis D'Auburn - Beuregaard; Guy D'Ennery - Minister at King's Council; Harry Davenport - Monsieur de Cosse; Nigel de Brulier - Archbishop; Albert Dekker - Count de Provence; Frank Elliott - King's Chamberlain; Billy Engle - Man with Goblet; Barry Fitzgerald - Peddler; Reginald Gardiner - Comte D'Artois; Lawrence Grant - Old Nobleman; Ben Hall - Young Man with Lantern; Ben Hendricks, Jr.; Holmes Herbert - Herald; Ramsay Hill - Major Domo; George Houston - Marquis De St. Priest; Esther Howard - Streetwalker; Mary Howard - Olivia; Hugh Huntley - Man in Opera Hall; Ruth Hussey - Mme. Le Polignac; Olaf Hytten - Boehmer, the Jeweler; Frank Jaquet - Keeper of the Seal; Edward Keane - General; Victor Kilian - Guard in Louis' Cell; Claude King - Choisell; George Kirby - Priest; Marilyn Knowlden - Princess Theresa; Henry Kolker - Court Aide; Howard Lang - Franz; Duke Lee - Coach Driver; Jacques Lory - French Peasant; Horace McMahon - Rabblerouser; Frank McGlynn, Jr. - Soldier with Rude Laugh; Helene Millard; Bea Nigro - Woman at the Opera; Moroni Olsen - Bearded Man; Rafaela Ottiano - Louise, Marie's Maid; Inez Palange - Fish Wife; Guy Bates Post - Convention President; Alonzo Price - Guardsman; Herbert Rawlinson - Goguelot; Buddy Roosevelt; Lionel Royce - Guillaume; Tom Rutherford - St. Clair; Kathrun Sheldon - Mme. Tilson; Ivan Simpson - Sauce; William Steele - Footman; Harry Stubbs - Councilor; Zeffie Tilbury - Dowager at Birth of Dauphin; Theodore Von Eltz - Officer in Entrance Hall; Gustav von Seyffertitz - King's Confessor; Walter Walker - Benjamin Franklin; Anthony Warde - Marat; Lyons Wickland - Laclos; Ian Wolfe - Herbert, the Jailer; George Zucco - Governor of Conciergerie; Peter Bull - Gamin; Harold Entwistle - Old Aristocrat at Opera; Jack George - Orchestra Leader; Corbet Morris - La Rue; Brent Sargent - St. Pre; Frank Swales - Chimney Sweep

Credit

William Horning - Art Director, Albertina Rasch - Choreography, Adrian - Costume Designer, Gile Steele - Costume Designer, W.S. Van Dyke - Director, Robert J. Kern - Editor, Herbert Stothart - Composer (Music Score), Jack Dawn - Makeup, Cedric Gibbons - Production Designer, William H. Daniels - Cinematographer, Hunt Stromberg - Producer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, Slavko Vorkapich - Special Effects, Donald Ogden Stewart - Screenwriter, Ernest Vajda - Screenwriter, Claudine West - Screenwriter, Stefan Zweig - Book Author, Stefan Eweigg - Short Story Author

Similar Movies

The Private Life of Henry VIII; The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)