|
Reviews:
Philip Hartung in The Commonweal, August 26, 1938: "Based on part on the book by Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette in the films is mostly sympathetic, and it is not meant to be a historic study of the Queen of her times. If Norma Shearer is lovely as the princess, and there can be no doubt of it, she is even more beautiful as the Queen Mother who suffers in prison when her husband and children are torn from her. The weakness of the film is the love story that is thrown in, Marie's affair with the Swedish Count De Fersen. Tyrone Power is convincing enough as the nobleman who chivalrously falls in love with the Queen; however, Miss Shearer forgets that she is no longer Juliet, and somehow these extra love scenes detract from the main theme. Don't be discouraged by the slow moving first half of this super colossal Hollywood production. Excitement comes when the revolution starts."
Liberty Magazine, August 27, 1938: "For all its great length, this filming of history moves with pace, power, and absorbing interest. Norma Shearer does the best work of her career as the little Austrian dropped into a mad, fantastic maelstrom. She is at once appealing, lovely and believable. The performance of Robert Morely is superb as the dullard Louis XVI, even if he isn't history. Tyrone Power, we regret to report, lacks the color as the flash of romance in the tragic Queen's life."
My Review:
Michael O'Hanlon (December 31, 2007)
(out of four stars).
Norma undoubtedly gave her finest performance in 1938's Marie Antoinette. But credit for this excellent movie does not all go to Norma; one must give credit to the excellent performances of Robert Morely, Tyrone Power, Anita Louise, and Joseph Schildkraut, and the beautiful direction of W.S. Van Dyke. The film features Norma at the very height of her Metro Goldwyn Mayer power, and, after Thalberg's death, Norma proved she was still Queen of the Lot, and then some. The movie deserves to be remembered along the lines of Gone With the Wind (1939), but, as with most Shearer films, it remains one of the best films Hollywood ever made to its small group of admirers.
In the opening scenes, Norma, at thirty-six years of age, is playing a fourteen year old girl. She does get a little bit too into her part, and Shearer fans can't help but get a bit humiliated when she says the line, "Oh, Mama, think of it, I shall be Queen! I shall be Queen of France!" This is a perfect example of Van Dyke allowing Norma to have too much creative control on her performance, but, as I previously mentioned, Norma was thirty-six playing a fourteen year old girl. The meeting between Norma and Robert Morely's Louis XVI only proves how extravagant the production of the movie was. All of the hundreds of extras in the scenes, both inside and out the palace, are beautifully gowned. The wedding night of the characters played by Shearer and Morely is notable for two reasons; one it reveals Louis' impudence. Second, Norma starts proving her talent when she calms Morely down with tears running down her face. Her voice is humble and surprisingly mature.
As the film roles on, Norma finds herself wrapped up in the court life of 18th Century Paris. She does well in portraying the extravagance and materialism of the character, she almost relishes in playing the spoiled Marie Antoinette. When she first meets Tyrone Power, who, by the way, actually gives a notable performance in the film, their chemistry is very convincing, and in the scenes where he leaves her for America, Norma's teary eyes help make one of the most heart-breaking moments in film. Her delivery of the line, "Goodbye, my love," followed by Power's long walk away from her, make that scene one of the best Norma ever acted in.
The intermission could not occur at a better time in the movie, largely because it jump-starts the action again. As the camera fades in, we are being shown the birth scenes of Norma's second child, a son, an heir to the French dynasty. Now, the first half the movie has its dull moments, but the second half is where all the action is. After Norma's child is born in a grand, luxurious palace, the camera shows the children of slaves out working in the fields. While taking a ride with her children in the back of a carriage, one of the peasants throws a rock threw the window at Norma and her children. As for the children, well, they both do good jobs in the film, considering their ages. However, there are a few scenes in which Van Dyke seems to try to make the children cuter than they actually are.
The first act of outrage from the public occurs at the opera house after the stealing of the necklace. First, absolutely no one rises and applauds Norma as she takes her seat (as they had done earlier in the film). Someone then bursts into the room and announces that the verdict of the jury concluded the criminal (who really did steal a luxurious necklace and claim he gave it to Norma) was innocent. The camera shows people on the streets gathering into crowds and shouting insults about Queen Marie Antoinette. In the scene when the palace of Versailles is stormed by the Paris mobs, Van Dyke directs one of his best scenes, and it is a bit shocking to watch Norma get slapped across the face by one of the angry, Parisian peasants.
Norma's performance from here on out is excellent -truly excellent. Her delivery of each line is perfect, and even when Tyrone Power meets her again to help her and Robert Morely flee France, she does not give any of those ridiculous faces like she makes in the closing scene of 1939's The Women. During their escape, they are caught and imprisoned. When Robert Morely comes to Norma for his last supper with her and the children, and reveals to her that he is to be executed in the morning, Norma reacts in complete disappear. After Morely's Louis XVI is dead, the guards come to take Norma's son away (in reality, to make him testify against his mother so she can be executed as well). For a woman who was so inept as a mother in real life, Norma proves herself to play one of the most heart breaking scenes between a mother and her child. As the child is taken away, with tears running down her face, she gently falls to her knees, making it look so easy.
Now, my two favorite scenes in this film are undoubtedly Norma's execution scene and the one right before that where Tyrone Power comes to meet her in the prison while she's waiting to die. He slowly walks in, and she turns to him, unsure of his identity because she has been kept in darkness so long. She realizes it is Power and bursts into tears, but without getting theatrical and histrionic. In fact, it's one of the most subtle, yet emotional scenes she ever played, which is why it's my second favorite scene out of all the movies she ever made. While on her way to the guillotine, Norma is completely blank -as the actress playing a woman in such a situation should be. One can see how emotionally drained she is, and she stumble walking towards the guillotine. As the guillotine slowly rises, a fade in of that young, fourteen year old Shearer saying that ridiculous line appears; however, this time it fits perfectly, showing how low Marie Antoinette had fallen. The fade in slowly disappears and the guillotine slowly rises over Norma. The camera exits with a shot of Tyrone Power, far off; with his own break down when the crowd begins to cheer at the Queen's decapitated head falls (the actual decapitation is obviously not shown in the movie). Van Dyke zooms into a ring (which Shearer had given Power earlier in the film) which reads, "Everything Leads Me to Thee."
Now when I first saw this movie I was shocked (in a good way) at how fast-paced it was. But as I watched it again and again, the movie dulls down considerably. Marie Antoinette is clearly a movie that should only be watched maybe once a year to keep that magic that only a movie this good, like Gone With the Wind, can provide .
Notes/Trivia:
-Work on the script had begun as early as 1934.
-Sidney Franklin was originally to direct the picture in lavish Technicolor. A few weeks before filming, Louis B. Mayer switched Franklin with W.S. Van Dyke in revenge for Norma refusing to sell back the MGM stocks Irving Thalberg had purchased in the early 1930's. Those stocks kept Norma a wealthy woman until the day she died.
-This was Norma Shearer's favorite of all her pictures.
-Robert Taylor, and Robert Montgomery were the two MGM candidates whom which Norma had her pick for the role of Count Axel de Ferson, she insisted on Tyrone Power, Fox Studios number one box office star. To make the deal, MGM loaned Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, and director Clarence Brown, to Fox in order to get Power.
|
Marie Antoinette
