A Royal Scandal (1945)
Director: Otto Preminger
Entertainment grade: B-
History grade: C
Catherine II "the Great" was Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796.
International relations
Anna (Anne Baxter), a lady in waiting, emerges from Catherine (Tallulah Bankhead)'s chambers to tell the chancellor of Russia (Charles Coburn) that the empress is fighting with the commander of the palace guard. The chancellor is known in the film simply as Nikolai Ilyich, with no surname, though since the film seems to be set in 1763 he should probably be Nikita Ivanovich Panin. In her rage, Catherine smashes a porcelain horseman – a gift from Frederick the Great, king of Prussia. "Even in her most furious moments, her majesty has exquisite taste," says the chancellor.
Romance
Anna's fiance, a young soldier called Alexei Chernoff (William Eythe), bursts into the palace unannounced to give Catherine a message. He's quite hot, so she decides to listen to him rather than having him slung in a dungeon. "Russia is full of traitors," he says. "The throne's in danger. Your majesty is in danger!" "That's no news," she snarls. He's still quite hot, though, so she has him washed, put in a white dress uniform and brought to her later that evening. Soon, he is promoted to become the new commander of the palace guard. Chernoff is fictional. Catherine's real lover at this point was Grigory Orlov, altogether a more substantial and interesting character. In fact, Catherine's real romances – especially her affairs with Grigory Potemkin and Stanislaw Poniatowski – could be turned into truly fantastic films without the screenwriters having to make up anything at all.
Society
Chernoff is just 24 to Catherine's 33 (Bankhead looks, and was, 10 years older than that). The empress soon discovers that dating an earnest younger man is a high-maintenance hobby. Chernoff keeps breaking off from smooching to harp on about the state of the Russian poor. "I've been thinking of nothing else but peasants," she reassures him. "Peasants, peasants and peasants." "They are good," he says. "They're really the backbone of the nation." "Yes, I know," she replies. "There's nothing like a good peasant."
Production
It takes poor Chernoff absolutely ages to work out that Catherine really couldn't give a hoot about the peasants, nor indeed anyone else, and is just a political operator. "I worshipped you," he bleats. "I put you on a pedestal. You were my ideal. Yes, I idolised you." Catherine snaps: "Then keep on idolising me and shut up." It's not exactly the most dignified portrayal of Catherine II. Even so, thanks to a smartly written screenplay and her excellent comic timing, Bankhead is much more fun in the role than Marlene Dietrich was in The Scarlet Empress 11 years earlier. Film buffs may sense the influence of original director Ernst Lubitsch on the dialogue, though his formal credit on A Royal Scandal was as producer. Otto Preminger was brought in to direct at the last minute when Lubitsch's health failed.
War
Disillusioned, Chernoff joins a rebellion. He is captured, and both he and his fiancée, Anna, are punished. "She banished me all the way to the Crimean peninsula," moans Anna. "But we don't own the Crimean peninsula," says the chancellor, before adding: "Not yet." "What did you expect from her?" Anna retorts. "A woman who takes away somebody's fiance is not going to respect anybody's peninsula." Indeed, she did not. Potemkin would annex the Crimean peninsula on Catherine's orders between April and July 1783.
Diplomacy
Catherine can't be bothered to have Chernoff shot, not least because she is distracted by the arrival of the new French ambassador (Vincent Price). "Your majesty travelling in 'er carriage looked like spring on wheels," he says in a comedy French accent. "And when I say 'spring', I mean ze season and not ze thing zat gives ze bounces." Oh, come on. Tallulah Bankhead is totally the thing that gives the bounces.
Verdict
The real stories about Catherine are a lot better than this one, but A Royal Scandal is worth watching for Bankhead alone.
