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Anastasia | |
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Directed by | Anatole Litvak |
Screenplay by | Arthur Laurents |
Based on | Anastasia by Marcelle Maurette |
Produced by | Buddy Adler |
Starring | Ingrid Bergman Yul Brynner Helen Hayes |
Cinematography | Jack Hildyard |
Edited by | Bert Bates |
Music by | Alfred Newman |
Production company | |
Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English French |
Budget | $3.52 million [1] |
Box office | $4.3 million (US and Canada rentals) [2] |
Anastasia is a 1956 American historical drama film starring Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. The film was directed and written by Anatole Litvak and Arthur Laurents, adapting the 1952 play written by Guy Bolton and Marcelle Maurette. It was inspired by the story of Anna Anderson, one of the best known of the many Romanov impostors who began to emerge after the Imperial family was murdered in July 1918.
Anastasia received two nominations at the 29th Academy Awards, with Bergman winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. At the 14th Golden Globe Awards, Bergman and Hayes both received nominations for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, with Bergman winning the category.
Though the last Tsar of Imperial Russia, Nicholas II, and his family were executed in July 1918, rumors spread that Nicholas's youngest daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia, somehow escaped and survived.
During 1928, in Paris, France, an ailing woman named Anna Anderson, who resembles Anastasia, is brought to the attention of a former White Russian, General Sergei Bounine, the proprietor of a successful Russian-themed nightclub. Bounine knows that, while in a mental asylum being treated for amnesia, Anna had told a nun there that she is Anastasia. Terrified after being approached by Bounine and addressed as the Grand Duchess, Anna flees to the River Seine and attempts to throw herself in, though she is stopped.
Bounine then meets with his associates, Boris Andreevich Chernov and Poitr Ivanovich Petrovin; he had already repeatedly raised funds from English stockholders, eager to obtain a £10 million inheritance that belonged to Anastasia held by the Bank of England-based on Bounine's claim that he had found her, which he privately admits is a lie. Frustrated by the delays, the stockholders have lost their patience with Bounine and has given him eight days to produce Anastasia.
Bounine arranges for Anna to be intensively trained to pass as Anastasia. During this time, the pair begin to develop feelings for each other. Later, in a series of carefully arranged encounters with former familiars and members of the Imperial court, Anna begins to display a sense of confidence and style that astonish people who doubt her. However, they do not receive enough confirmations from people that recognized Anna and Bounine comes up with another plan.
Shortly afterwards, Anna and Bounine arrive in Copenhagen, Denmark, to convince the skeptical Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, the Grand Duchess's paternal grandmother, of Anna being Anastasia, as no one would question her decision. Meanwhile, Bounine becomes jealous of how much attention Prince Paul von Haraldberg, another fortune hunter and the Dowager Empress's nephew, pays Anna. Initially thinking that Anna was going to be just another imposter, the Dowager Empress is persuaded into believing that Anna is Anastasia.
Later, at a ball in which the Dowager Empress was to present her granddaughter, presumbly to announce Anna's and Prince Paul's engagement as well, the Dowager Empress has a final private conversation with her. Though she is aware of Bounine's intentions, the Dowager Empress tells Anna that she believes that she truly is Anastasia and the future was hers to decide. Upon realizing that Anna and Bounine were in love, the Dowager Empress allows them to run away together. When told that she and Bounine and Anna had left, Paul explains to the others that the young woman wasn't Anastasia after all. But the Dowager Empress replies, "Wasn't she?" and goes to speak to the guests. When asked by Paul what she going to say to them, the Dowager Empress responds, "I will say, the play is over. Go home."
The film was adapted by Guy Bolton and Arthur Laurents from the play by Bolton and Marcelle Maurette. Some critics believed the film was bound too much to the static settings and theatrical "scenes" of the play, but additional, essentially decorative, ball scenes were added to open up the action.
Though the film does not explicitly reveal whether Anna is or isn't Anastasia, it suggests through subtle hints that she is, such as frequently coughing when she was frightened, which the Dowager Empress says that Anastasia also did when she was a young girl. The gradual realization that Anna is the Grand Duchess is through Bounine's growing feelings for her.
The film was partially meant to mark Bergman's return to Hollywood after several years of working in Italy with her husband, Roberto Rossellini. Their marriage had caused a scandal, as he divorced his then current wife, Marcella DeMarchis, to be with her and Bergman had become pregnant with his child. The film was also a comeback for Helen Hayes. She had suspended her career for several years due to the death of her daughter, Mary, and her husband's failing health.
The film was shot on location in Copenhagen, London and Paris. Studio interiors were shot at MGM-British Studios at Borehamwood, England.
The Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris, which was a center of worship for Russian aristocrats and other émigrés from St. Petersburg in the city, is featured in one of the early scenes. [3]
The theme song of the film, also titled "Anastasia", has been recorded by a number of artists. The most popular version was by Pat Boone, reaching number 3 (as a double-A-side with "Don't Forbid Me") on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart for several weeks in early 1957.
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Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
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Academy Awards | Best Actress | Ingrid Bergman | Won | [4] |
Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture | Alfred Newman | Nominated | ||
British Academy Film Awards | Best British Screenplay | Arthur Laurents | Nominated | [5] |
David di Donatello Awards | Best Foreign Actress | Ingrid Bergman | Won | |
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Won | [6] | |
Helen Hayes | Nominated | |||
National Board of Review Awards | Top Ten Films | 8th Place | [7] | |
Best Actor | Yul Brynner (also for The King and I and The Ten Commandments ) | Won | ||
New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Actor | Nominated | ||
Best Actress | Ingrid Bergman | Won | ||
Photoplay Awards | Most Popular Male Star | Yul Brynner | Nominated |
The House of Romanov was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russia. Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, and his immediate family were executed in 1918, but there are still living descendants of other members of the imperial house.
Yuliy Borisovich Briner, known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical The King and I (1951), for which he won two Tony Awards, and later an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1956 film adaptation. He played the role 4,625 times on stage and became known for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it for The King and I.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.
Anna Anderson was an impostor who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II and Alexandra, was murdered along with her parents and siblings on 17 July 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but the location of her body was unknown until 2007.
Anastasia is a 1997 American animated musical historical fantasy film produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman from a screenplay by the writing teams of Susan Gauthier and Bruce Graham, and Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, and based on a story adaptation by Eric Tuchman. It features songs written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens and a musical score composed and conducted by David Newman. The film stars the voices of Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria, Bernadette Peters, Kirsten Dunst, and Angela Lansbury. The film shares its plot with the 1956 film Anastasia, which in turn was based on a play by Marcelle Maurette. Unlike those treatments, this version adds Grigori Rasputin as the main antagonist.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II.
Maria Feodorovna became Empress of Russia as the second wife of Emperor Paul I. She founded the Office of the Institutions of Empress Maria.
Kira Kirillovna of Russia was the second daughter of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She married Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, grandson of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II.
Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia was the elder daughter and fourth child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and Dagmar of Denmark. She was the sister of the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II.
Sophie Freiin von Buxhoeveden, also known as Baroness Sophie Buxdoeveden, was a Baltic German Lady-in-waiting, in service to Tsarina Alexandra of Russia. She was the author of three memoirs about the imperial family and about her own escape from Russia.
Anya is a musical with a book by George Abbott and Guy Bolton and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest. As they had done with Song of Norway (1944) and Kismet (1953), Wright and Forrest developed the musical score using themes written by a classical composer, in this case Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Members of the ruling Russian imperial family, the House of Romanov, were executed by a firing squad led by Yakov Yurovsky in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on July 17, 1918, during both the Russian Civil War and near the end of the First World War.
Princess Charlotte of Württemberg, later known as Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, was the wife of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia, the youngest son of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.
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Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna is a 1986 American-Austrian-Italian made-for-television biographical film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, starring Amy Irving, Rex Harrison, Olivia de Havilland, Omar Sharif, Christian Bale and Jan Niklas. The film was loosely based on the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and the book The Riddle of Anna Anderson by Peter Kurth. It was originally broadcast in two parts.
Clothes Make the Woman is a surviving 1928 American silent historical romantic drama film directed by Tom Terriss, and starring Eve Southern and Walter Pidgeon. The film is loosely based on the story of Anna Anderson, a Polish woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. Anastasia was killed along with her parents and siblings by communist Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17, 1918.
Anastasia is a musical play with music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and a book by Terrence McNally. Based on the 20th Century Fox Animation 1997 film of the same name, the musical adapts the legend of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who was rumored to have escaped and survived the execution of the Russian Imperial family. Many years later, an amnesiac young woman named Anya hopes to find some trace of her past by siding with two con men, who wish to take advantage of her resemblance to Anastasia.
Marcelle Maurette was a French playwright and screenwriter who is particularly well known for her play Anastasia (1952) which brought her international recognition, and inspired a film of the same name. It is not her only play centred on a woman with a tragic story. Many other works of hers feature historical or fictional heroines with dramatic lives. She was honoured with various awards and was a prominent French literary figure.
Alexandra Alexandrovna Tegleva, also known as Shura Tegleva and Sasha Tegleva, was a Russian noblewoman who served as a nursemaid in the Russian Imperial Household. As nursemaid to the children of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, she went with the family into exile in Tobolsk following the abdication of Nicholas II during the February Revolution, but was ultimately prevented from staying with them during their house arrest at Ipatiev House. She survived the Russian Revolution and married Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss academic who served with her in the Imperial Household as the children's French tutor. She moved to Lausanne as a white émigré and remained there the rest of her life. Tegleva worked with her husband to investigate and debunk the claims made by Anna Anderson, a Romanov impostor who pretended to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.
Elizaveta Nikolaevna "Liza" Ersberg was a German-Russian parlormaid who served in the Russian Imperial Household. The daughter of a stoker employed by Emperor Alexander III, she was hired by Empress Maria Feodorovna as a parlormaid at the Alexander Palace in 1898. She used her post to obtain a position at court for her friend Anna Demidova, who became a lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.