Academy Awards, USA 1939
| Nominated Oscar | Best Actress in a Leading Role Norma Shearer |
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role Robert Morley | |
| Best Art Direction Cedric Gibbons | |
| Best Music, Original Score Herbert Stothart |
MGM
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke II
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)
Hollywood biopic of the Austrian princess and her arranged marriage to the heir to the throne of France. Norma Shearer shines in perhaps her best role, transforming herself from excited young girl, to disappointed wife, to Parisian pleasure seeker and all the way back again, bravely appearing without makeup in her final scenes on the way to the guillotine. Robert Morley is impressive as the meek king who finds strength in her. Overlong, to be sure, but the pace in the second half picks up considerably as the royal family flees the mobs of the French Revolution. This film solidifies in my mind the place of Shearer as the best actress of the 30s, although Garbo, Crawford and Davis tend to be the best known today, each is overrated in their own way and it is Norma who stands above them all.
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