movie reviews Typical Hollywood fare circa 1956 complete with a gypsy dancing sequence.Ingrid Bergman at 42 is too old for the role. She is playing 27 year old Anastasia. But everyone watched the movie to see Ingrid more than Anastasia.That is not to say the film was not entertaining, it was, although it started off slow. Also it is filmed almost entirely with stage sets which is depressing we are so spoiled these days.Why is it that a film that was made in 1956 and is supposed to take place in 1928 still looks like 1956? Something about the hairdos the way the women were trussed up even the way they walk...and finally as mentioned above the prerequisite gypsy dancing scene. You expect a Cadillac fin to be in the mix some place.A watch if you have nothing better make allowances for period Hollywood corn.

blanche-2 "Anastasia" is based on the Broadway play that starred Viveca Lindfors, Hurd Hatfield, and Eugenie Leontovich, and it was this film that brought Ingrid Bergman back to the United States after the big sin that drove her out of the country. Besides Bergman, the film stars Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes.We know today that Anna Anderson was a Polish actress and not Princess Anastasia, but before DNA, this was one of the world's great mysteries. In the real story, Prince Phillip's DNA was used, since he is related to the Russian royal family, and proved that Anna Anderson was a fake, answering a question that had vexed people for decades.In this version, a Russian businessman, Bounine (Brynner) and some other Russian expatriates living in Paris plot to collect millions of Romanov money by grooming an unhappy, depressed young woman who has recently been institutionalized to be the Princess Anastasia due to her resemblance to the Tsar's youngest daughter. Bounine begins to believe that she might be the real Anastasia. But the big test will be before the Dowager Empress (Hayes) who has no interest in meeting another pretender.The acting is wonderful, with the beautiful Bergman giving a fully fleshed out performance, beginning as a confused woman and developing through the film into a real royal presence. Brynner is very strong in his role, with moments of grace and gentleness.Bergman won her second Academy Award for her performance, but she is matched by Helen Hayes' powerful performance as the Dowager Empress, externally a hard woman but one whose heart has been broken by the tragic loss of her family. Though she can't let herself believe at first that this is Anastasia, she is longing for her to be.Very good movie with an interesting ending.

n-mo "Anastasia" is not a film for everyone. Those who insist on historical accuracy in films depicting real people and events would do best to stay away from the movie house altogether. "Anastasia," however, is not exactly about real people, although it does incorporate the lives of real humans and parallels with their true stories to depict a compelling "what-if" scenario and this is incredibly effective, even after DNA tests have revealed that "Anna Anderson" was definitely not Anastasia Nikolavena Romanov but instead, in all likelihood a Kashubian factory worker. (I am unaware whether she ever used the name "Anna Koreff.")As a matter of fact, those who are familiar with the real story are in for an even grander treat. We are thrown into 1928 Paris with a brief shot of this wretched madwoman at Russian Easter, lonely and rejected outside the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and on the brink of suicide, and we are definitely prepared to think of see as the impostor that "Anna Anderson" was. Yet as the film progresses, we are shown a woman quite literally without any past. Michael Thornton opined of the real "Anna Anderson," "Somewhere along the way she lost and rejected (Kashubian factory worker Franziska) Schanzkowska. She lost that person totally and accepted completely she was this new person."Ingrid Bergman's Anna Koreff, however, is not simply mentally lost: the world has lost her as well. It helps, perhaps, that Bergman is infinitely more convincing as a princess than as a vagabond, and the retrospective certitude of the falsity of "Anna Anderson"'s claim helps to disguise her limits at the beginning of the film when, like Yul Brynner's General Bounine, we are meant to doubt her identity. Bounine creates Koreff's new identity as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and so effectively that he begins to believe in it himself. But the entirely unsolvable questions remain:Is Anna Koreff Anastasia? Does she actually believe she is Anastasia? More ominously, whoever she is, does she even truly and consciously remember?This piece carefully avoids resolving these questions. On the one hand, the speed and thoroughness with which she slides into her new role is difficult to explain and impossible to deny. On the other hand, the ending (among other things) is cleverly constructed so as to expose her assumed royal identity as a construction. This is not, of course, the real story, and in the post-1900 world, such a thorough and complete break with any sort of past anchor is next to impossible. But if it happened... this may be just how it happened."Anastasia" is above all a beautifully designed film, full of elegance and taste. Ingrid Bergman is as beautiful as the interior architecture against which she assumes her royal identity. Again, it is not a film for everyone: many will have great difficulty connecting and sympathizing with the royal circles and personalities in this tome, but those who are able to understand pre-modern, pre-liberal (c.f. human) sensibilities will love it. Helen Hayes is absolutely perfect and inspiring as the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (it is plain to see how the real Empress was so beloved in her adopted Russia), and her chemistry with Bergman is incredible to behold. The only thing I can find to critique is that the script--and to some extent a steely wall between Bergman and Brynner--does not fully back up the eventual culmination of the relationship between Koreff and Bounine; the conclusion fits quite well thematically but is mildly illogical with regard to the plot. Still, this is a minor complaint, as "Anastasia" is first and foremost a film about identity, and one that will jar and confound its viewers time and again.

smatysia Not my favorite Ingrid Bergman movie, although her acting was very good here. Yul Brynner was quite good as the semi-villain who eventually re-orders his priorities. And there is an interesting undertone of the Pygmalion story in this film. The historical inaccuracy is huge, but of course that wasn't the goal of the filmmakers, so that isn't a completely fair criticism. Now that Anastasia Nikolayevna's bones have been found and identified, there isn't that much story here, but of course that wasn't known at the time. The intent was to bring a popular Broadway play to the screen, and although I never saw the play, I suspect that it was a bang-up job.