From the 1950s: Anastasia

1956 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Anatole Litvak

Starring

Ingrid Bergman

Yul Brynner

Helen Hayes

Akim Tamiroff

Martita Hunt

Felix Aylmer

Sacha Pitoëff

Ivan Desney

Natalie Schaefer

She had been persona non grata in the States since 1949 because of that Italian business.  She had left her dentist husband and young daughter in California to run off with director Roberto Rossellini with whom she appeared to be senselessly in love.  Americans had been caught up in the image she helped create by keeping her private life private and appearing in recent films as a nun and then a saint. 

For her entire American career she had invited danger into her personal life by sleeping with many of her costars and directors and enjoying long relationships with others despite being married.  Often on the edge of public exposure, what would happen if her saintly image became tainted?

Her recent films had been bombs, something new for Ingrid Bergman to have to deal with.  She wanted to take a break from Hollywood and work with Rossellini in his neo-realism films.  She was also interested in bedding him because his reputation stirred her always active imagination.

She may not have imagined she would become pregnant by him and certainly would never have thought she  would be denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate.  Her Italian films were largely dismissed and no American film company would give thought to hiring her.

Flash forward to 1956.  20th Century Fox was thrilled with Yul Brynner's glorious performance in The King and I and wanted to reward him with the lead male role in Anastasia.  It looked like Jennifer Jones would be loaned to Fox for the title role.

Bergman's longtime agent, the powerful Kay Brown, thought her client would be better to play the part and did all she could to secure the role for her.  The head of Fox at the time, Buddy Adler, agreed.  Despite the many naysayers Bergman would be hired to make her Hollywood comeback film.

In 1928 Paris a young woman is released from another mental hospital claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest, surviving daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, who survived the family execution in 1918.  Her tale is heard by Russian exiles (Brynner, Tamiroff, Pitoëff), who now run a Russian-themed nightclub and they befriend the suicidal amnesiac.  When they realize how much she looks like Anastasia, they involve the reluctant young woman in impersonating the grand duchess so they may collect 10 million pounds that would be due her.

She claims to remember certain things about her privileged, royal upbringing and she genuinely believes she is Anastasia but Brynner tells her it's nonsense because he knows the young woman was executed along with her family.  Nonetheless, they continue with her training.  She has been nursed back to better health, taught how to talk, walk, sit, bow and all else if she's to pass her supreme and mandatory test in a mere eight days.  

That would be her meeting with Anastasia's grandmama, the exiled Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Hayes), now living in Denmark.  Unfortunately, the imperious Marie wants nothing to do with one more impostor but eventually Brynner, a family friend of Marie's, is able to break her down.

Indeed, the film's best scene is the meeting between the two women.  The old empress shows up at the hotel room of the Brynner/Bergman and company with little notice.  As the older woman is haranguing the younger one, Bergman begins coughing as she cries.  Hayes questions her wellness but Bergman says she is fine and coughs when she is frightened.  The old lady's eyes light up when hearing that because that is exactly what her granddaughter said as a child.  She is convinced her granddaughter has returned.

A grand ball is staged for the dowager empress to announce the engagement of Anastasia to a prince (Desney) but she ducks out the door and into the night with Brynner whom she has come to love.  The empress is happy.  The film ends in a bit of ambiguity and mystery that surrounds it from the beginning.

And a lovely piece of filmmaking it is.  The three leads do great justice to their roles.  Bergman's is the toughest

since she has to project sincerity and doubt, shrewdness and vulnerability, strength and weakness.  Within single scenes she is called upon to go from one extreme to another.  She seems so earnest.   Observing her we're aware she has drawn us in and yet we wonder.  She does not want to go on public display as Anastasia nor is she interested in the money.  What in the hell is she up to?    

Bergman would go on to win her second Oscar for this role, which, great as she is, may be partially a reward to welcome her back from her blacklisting.

Despite the fact that the film is considered Bergman's Hollywood comeback, all the filming was done in Europe and she herself did not come back until 1969.  She divorced Rossellini in 1957.

It was interesting to me that Bergman was made a light blonde for the role.  Interesting because neither Anastasia nor Anna was blonde.  On the other hand, I thought she was quite lovely as one and should have adopted the look in more films.

Brynner stands his ground as a manipulator, user, bossy and cruel.  The actor's own high opinion of himself made him sheer perfection to play the haughty orchestrator of events.  The actor would never have another year like 1956.  In addition to this film and the aforementioned The King and I, there was also The Ten Commandments.  Brynner and Bergman would both win Oscars in 1956 but he won for King.  

Hayes, the First Lady of the American Theater, never made many movies.  At the time she hadn't made one in three years and actually hadn't made a successful one since the thirties.  It shouldn't have been surprising to anyone that one of acting royalty would play a Russian royal so magnificently.  Her great scene with Bergman is rich with layers, texture and nuance.

The remainder of the cast doesn't shirk any duties either although I need to specifically mention Hunt in her ditsy role as a baroness under the thumb of Hayes but a willing player in the unfolding drama.

Alfred Newman's musical score was also up for an Oscar.  I loved the theme that played frequently although I don't know what it is.  

Russian-born Anatole Litvak certainly brought a reality to the proceedings.  I assume it was expected.  He and all his craftspeople made a wonderfully constructed picture in every way.  He and Bergman formed a warm friendship and would work again six years later in Goodbye Again, also filmed in Paris.  He would work with Brynner again in The Journey (1959).

The story is based on Anna Anderson's longtime claim that she was Anastasia.   Around the time that production was finishing up, the producers found out that she was still alive.  They realized they had to have her permission to proceed and luckily she provided it.

I suspect they came to know one another well

It seems most people didn't believe her although some did.  The two women did have a number of things in common, including substantially the same handwriting and ears with 17 points of similarity.  Her claim was heightened when the remains of the Romanov family were unearthed and neither she nor her younger brother were there.  Some years later, however, that claim was also debunked.

Someone familiar with Anna's story publicly revealed that she never met the empress because the latter wouldn't consider it.  Not all that long ago, the decades-old myth was put to rest when DNA revealed Anna was not Anastasia.

Screenwriter Arthur Laurents apparently saw little point in telling the truth or what truth was then known... perhaps there was no box office to be gained.  He called what he wrote a fantasy.  The three men who train her, Brynner and company, were all pure fiction.  However what Laurents has fashioned is a colorful look into the life of a likely imposter... we say likely because his words always make us unsure.  We know the truth today but we did not in 1956.

The film is built on a solid bedrock of mystery which I love when I can get it.  Mystery is everywhere... in the movie, in real life.  It never lets up.  Seeing it first as a mere kid, the mystery for me was summed up with a what-IS-going-on?  The real-life story of Anna/Anastasia is pretty compelling but Laurents moved things around like chess pieces and then adding huge dollops of fiction --the art of telling lies about telling lies-- allowing the mystery to deepen. 

I can't say as I had actually forgotten about this film (after all, a DVD of it sits on my shelf) but I am surprised it took so long to write about one that is as good as this one.  I need to thank Paul B for reminding me.

Here's the trailer...

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