Marie Antoinette (1938) [VHS]

Marie Antoinette (1938) [VHS]
by Julien Duvivier, W.S. Van Dyke

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Product details

Actor: Anita Louise, John Barrymore, Norma Shearer, Robert Morley, Tyrone Power
Director: Julien Duvivier, W.S. Van Dyke
Writer: Claudine West
Writer: Donald Ogden Stewart
Writer: Ernest Vajda
Writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Writer: Stefan Zweig
Writer: Talbot Jennings
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: NTSC
Running Time: 149 minutes
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Studio: MGM (Warner)

VHS Movie Reviews of Marie Antoinette (1938) [VHS]

Movie Review: feed back
Summary: 5 Stars

very happy with service, exactly what i wanted, plays in my region 4 area,prompt delivery, looking forward to further purchases, beats watching on vhs,if youre into gone with the wind type movies, this is on same lines

Movie Review: Vive "Marie Antoinette!"
Summary: 5 Stars

This film is without question a triumph. It is by far the most realistic and accurate film of Marie Antoinette that I have yet seen (Coppola's recent film was a grand disappointment). However, this film is amazingly factual and true to events. The Costumes are incredible, and the scenic elements are on a scale to rival the beautiful palace of Versailles. The Actors are phenomenal. They portray their historical character in an excellent manner. Anita Louise is beautiful as Princesse Lamballe. I recomend this film to all. I should like to see it colorized in feauture to bring the incredible costumes and scenery to its full splendour. BRAVO for the regal beauty and princely spleandour of "Marie Antoinette."

Movie Review: Glamour
Summary: 5 Stars

MGM by the time this film was put into production was known as "The Rolls-Royce of The Film Industry" and this film shows you why. It's a gigantic spectecle on the grand scale,what Metro was known for and every dime spent is up there on the screen,from the brilliant (if oversized) sets to the sumptous costumes and photography. Norma Shearer,the acknowledged "Queen" of MGM (Joan Crawford,he nearest rival,when asked by Shearer was always given first pass on plum roles retorted"Simple,she's screwing the boss,meaning Head of Production,Irving Thalberg to whom she was married)but that aside,Shearer is a treat,aging from a wide-eyed 16 year old on the threshold of destiney,to a prematurely aged woman facing death. WATCH IT!

Movie Review: Let them eat spectacle!
Summary: 3 Stars

MARIE ANTOINETTE (1938) is a film to see repeatedly. Make no mistake; Robert Horton's able Amazon review is, in my opinion, very good. But "the parade of enormous sets and opulent gowns" does contribute more than simply "stodginess". In fact, for me, the appeal of this film lies in its setting. Think of the effect of the METROPOLIS (1927) sets on the viewer; but instead of Industrial, we have a Baroque architectural style. Unfortunately, the sets are so grandiose, like being in Versailles itself; one forgets to watch the actors. This competition for attention between the actors and their setting results in the actors playing a more minor part of the film; until the prison scenes; and that should not have been.

Relative to the other actors, the excellent performances by Joseph Schildkraut and Robert Morley stand out. This may be due to their acting style; their roles are played in "larger than life" fashion, and are therefore best able to compete with the setting: John Barrymore is hardly in the picture, Tyrone Power is woodenly handsome, Norma Shearer is fine. However, as I say, this film isn't about the actors or acting; it is about spectacle. And what a spectacle!

I have little to say regarding the expectation by some that Hollywood should have delivered an historically accurate film. Have they ever?

Movie Review: "I cannot wear my crown upon my heart."
Summary: 4 Stars

Marie Antoinette of Austria (Norma Shearer) is to marry. Her King will be Louis XVI (Robert Morley) of France. Her excitement soon turns to dispair when she realizes that her new husband is the joke of the family with the inability to produce an heir. After years of solitude, she begins to enjoy her wealth by attending parties and galavanting with the royal family. Unfortunately, she puts her trust into the wrong people including those with a thirst for her power. Slowly, the people of France begin to act on their unrest and soon Marie Antoinette is void of a throne and in fear for her life.

Shearer seemed destined to play this role, and it is one of the films she is best remembered for. There is no doubt that her connections with studio head Irving Thalberg who was also her husband held some sway over her getting the part, but no one can say she was not talented enough to play it. She is radiant in the beginning of the film when the idea of being a queen is exciting and romantic. She changes over the course of two and a half hours as she learns just what it means to be royalty until she is a shadow of her former self, withered and broken. All of the other cast members pale in comparison to her including the highly praised John Barrymore who plays Louis XV.

Historically, this film is not quite accurate, although Morley's simple performance is somewhat true to Louis XVI. By this time, the artistocracy had been intermarrying for quite some time, so Louis XVI's genes showed the effects of inbreeding, including impotence. In truth, Marie Antoinette was a bit of a half-wit herself who had no sense of responsibility to her people and who spent her days playing peasant in a reconstructed village. Brought to film, these two would not make a respectable pair, so the facts were embellished for the sake of entertainment.

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Summary of Marie Antoinette (1938) [VHS]

The lavish, overstuffed house style of MGM in the 1930s gets a fluffy showcase in Marie Antoinette, a preposterous epic about the pampered Queen. One of MGM's longtime queens, Norma Shearer (who had been married to head of production/wonder boy Irving Thalberg until his death in 1936), plays the young Austrian girl imported to marry the man who would become Louis XVI of France. The film covers Marie's girly youth at court, through an affair with suave Tyrone Power (then in his early, dewy prime) and finally to the dark days of the Revolution. Like Sofia Coppola's 2006 version of the Queen's life, this film emphasizes glitz, and leaves the Royals mostly innocent of blame for what happens to the starving peasants. Unlike the Coppola picture, this one takes Marie and diffident husband Louis (Robert Morley, his film debut) through their imprisonment and all the way to the guillotine. The parade of enormous sets and opulent gowns contributes to the general sense of stodginess, even if one might pause to note the rather continental attitude toward Marie's extramarital needs. John Barrymore plays the declining Louis XV, but it's the childlike Morley that steals the show. Shearer's glamorous star turn might leave some viewers puzzled as to her appeal, although the very ordinariness of her personality actually works in concert with Marie's out-of-her-depth character. The project had been a pet of Thalberg's, and MGM went ahead with the film after his death, but it marked the end of Shearer's period of major stardom. The opposite of this film's highbrow literary approach can be found in Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress, with Marlene Dietrich, a delirious and cinematic treatment of a Queen abroad. (This DVD includes overture and entr'acte music.) --Robert Horton

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