Anastasia (1956) User Reviews

The Real Deal

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 11 February 2006]

A trio of unscrupulous Russian exiles Yul Brynner, Sacha Pitoeff, and Akim Tamiroff locate an amnesia victim among the flotsam and jetsam of refugees in post World War I Europe and attempt to pass her off as one of Czar Nicholas II,'s daughters, Grand Duchess Anastasia, who survived the massacre of the royal family in 1918.

The role of "Anastasia" marked Ingrid Bergman's return to an American film production after her exile from America after 1949 and she won her second Oscar with it. She runs a whole gamut of emotions from absolute despair to an assumed air of royalty. After a while Brynner and his confederates think that just maybe Ingrid's the real deal.

Of course the ultimate test is whether the Dowager Empress of Russia, Helen Hayes, accepts Ingrid as the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Although Ingrid got her Oscar, I've always felt that Hayes gives the best performance in the film.

At the age Dowager Empress Marie was in the Twenties all she had left was memories. She's from the Danish Royal House and was the widow of Alexander III and the mother of Nicholas II of Russia. Her world was turned upside down in 1917 with the Russian Revolution, not just toppled from the privileged position she had, she lost her entire family of the next generation of Romanovs to political upheaval. Hayes is back in her native Denmark, a lonely proud, but regal woman with nothing but memories. She truly becomes the Empress Marie.

Yul Brynner as General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine is one of that crowd of Russian refugees who apparently got out of Russia with more than just a skin. He's the owner of a Russian café in Paris and should be doing OK, but he's got a streak of larceny in him and a taste for high living. He's involved in bilking a whole lot of Russian exiles in a search for a Romanov heir to claim millions deposited by the late Czar for his children in the Bank of England. He's got to come up with an heir of some kind and fast. But he's a charming fellow and gives one charming performance.

Both Brynner and Director Anatole Litvak with their own Slavic backgrounds give Anastasia a real flavor of authenticity for the main characters and the Russian exile background of the film. It was shot on location in both Paris and Copenhagen and the camera work is first rate.

Anastasia became a milestone film for Ingrid Bergman and while Anna Koreff may have been a bogus Russian princess, as an actress Ingrid Bergman was always the real deal.

That's entertainment!

[marcslope · 7/10 · 27 November 2006]

Not the most accurate rumination on whether or not Anna was really Anastasia, perhaps, but creamy, expensive entertainment, expertly done. Many share in the credit. There's a witty, epigrammatic screenplay by the always reliable Arthur Laurents (love that closing line, and most of Helen Hayes' dialogue) that manages to speculate perceptively on the nature-of-performance theme without beating it into the ground; an evocative Alfred Newman score that surpasses virtually anything else he did at Fox; fine CinemaScope photography that really uses the outer reaches of the screen, though it does dabble in spectacle for spectacle's sake at times; a superb Hayes (she could be theatrically actressy or resort to little-old-lady tricks in other movies, but here she's the real deal); a delightful Martita Hunt; and chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner that suggests all the underlying sexual tension without ever stating it explicitly. Also knock-your-eye-out costume design. In a time of rampant Hollywood bloat and slow-moving epics, this one moves along, without too much pretension. And Anatole Litvak's direction, while no great shakes, is nicely paced.

Beautiful

[n-mo · 8/10 · 23 August 2009]

"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.

Fascinating film

[clydefrogg · 4 April 2002]

The "what if" story of Anastasia is a fascinating one. This particular version of that story is outstanding. A great script that is witty and often funny, filmed and acted beautifully.

In addition to containing the finest performance of Ingrid Bergman's career, including Casablanca, Yul Brynner is at his best and Helen Hayes delivers an absolutely brilliant gem of a performance. While Bergman justly won Best Actress of 1956 for her performance, I find it astounding that Brynner and especially Hayes did not even get consideration. Yes, Brynner was nominated and even won for his silly, over the top performance in The King And I. And I'm sure, like Jim Broadbent this year, he was rewarded as much for his body of work for the year as he was that single performance. Still though, I'm baffled as to why he won for The King and not for "The General". The snub of Hayes, though, is even more mystifying. Particularly because 1956 was a pretty weak year for great films and performances, especially in the supporting actress category. Any year in which a performance like Dorothy Malone's in the Sirk trash de l'annee, Written on the Wind, can win has to be weak. Hayes performance, in addition to being played to perfection, also seems like the kind that is almost a given to at least be nominated. In other words, if Anastasia was remade (again) this year, Judi Dench would play the role and a nomination would be a given. Almost as much a mystery to me as the "Is she or Isn't she" thing.

This film fluctuates wildly between dark and light. One minute, you're shocked by the horrors Anastasia must have endured over the years, the next minute Ingrid Bergman is making you laugh out loud at a brilliant drunken performance. One minute, Bergman is in tears, the next she's overjoyed. Definitely one of the all time great performances by an actress.

However, there are a few things I'm just not sure how I feel about. And perhaps that's one of the films' intentions. (Possible spoiler ahead) The ending is very surprising and very abrupt. And not entirely satisfying. Or is it? I'm not sure. Not being familiar with the story before I saw this film, I expected a letdown in the final twenty minutes after Anastasia's grandmother accepts her. I predicted they would plant one final seed of doubt, and then end it. And they do...in a way. But not the way I would have hoped. I would have liked to see it end on a dark and sinister note. To put it into our heads that maybe Ingrid Bergman's character might be playing everyone for a fool. Maybe. As it stands, the apparent flight with Brynner's character is functional enough, I suppose, to create some mystery. In other words, for me, the ending is a letdown, but not a total letdown. The difference between a great film and what could have been a brilliant one.

An enjoyable movie about 'acting'

[MOscarbradley · 6/10 · 23 April 2006]

As the woman who may or may not have been the Grand Duchess Anastastia, Ingrid Bergman was welcomed back with open arms by the Hollywood fraternity that had spurned her after her affair with Roberto Rossellini and she won her second Oscar for her performance. It is a fine piece of acting in a film that is all about acting; (Bergman plays a woman called Anna Koreff who is being groomed to pass as the Grand Duchess, though it is no "Pygmalion" as she may well indeed have been the person she is being hired 'to play', though DNA tests later proved the woman in question was not Anastasia).

Yul Brynner is the Russian general who acts as her Professor Higgins and he's excellent. The same year he won an Oscar for "The King and I" but his performance here is just as good. Helen Hayes is superb as the Dowager Empress and there is a terrific turn from the great Martita Hunt as the Empress' lady-in-waiting. Anatole Litvak's direction isn't exciting in 'cinematic' terms but he knows he has a good yarn and he moves it along at a cracking pace. Between them, Bergman, Brynner and Litvak hold you in thrall.

Anastasia

[jboothmillard · 7/10 · 23 June 2011]

I should admit first that I saw the cartoon musical remake with the voices of Meg Ryan and John Cusack before this original that I had only heard of because of the award winning lead actress, so of course I watched. Basically is has been ten years since the teenage Romanov Grand Duchess and her sisters and brother, children of the Tsar, Nicholas II, have apparently been killed. Anna Koreff (Oscar and Golden Globe winning Ingrid Bergman) is the orphaned woman who has no memory of where she came from, turning up in Paris and found by General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) who is very keen on the £10,000,000 inheritance. What starts out as training to become a convincing Anastasia impostor, with her uncanny resemblance, Anna gains more confidence and style to meet what may be former familiars and imperial court members. Her big ambition to help her possibly confirm her identity, as there are many saying she really is Anastasia, is to meet Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (Golden Globe nominated Helen Hayes) during the tour de force in Copenhagen. When Anna gets to the know fortune hunting Prince Paul Von Haraldberg (Ivan Desny) we see Bounine getting jealous, and everything comes down to a grand ball where he tries to convince the Empress to meet the lady he has found. The Empress does have a private word with Anna, she is obviously confident that she is another impostor wanting to inherit the fortune she is owed, as the only living Tsar sibling, but as a conversation develops Anna does reveal remembering many things from her past that the Empress recognises, and only she would know. In the end, supposedly the Empress confirms that Anna truly is the living Anastasia, and although she is seen in the arms of Price Haraldberg and not Bounine, it is a seemingly happy ending because everything has been settled. Also starring Akim Tamiroff as Boris Adreivich Chernov, Martita Hunt as Baroness Elena Von Livenbaum, Felix Aylmer as Chamberlain, Sacha Pitoëff as Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin, Natalie Schafer as Irina Lissemskaia, Grégoire Gromoff as Stepan and Karel Stepanek as Mikhail Vlados. Bergman does give a good award worthy performance (she won against Deborah Kerr in The King and I, ironically starring Oscar winning Bryner), the story is a little confusing in moments, and I may have drifted off slightly, but it is a rather watchable period drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Music for Alfred Newman, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Best British Screenplay. Very good!

An engaging and interesting story about an attempt to pass off a young girl as the surviving daughter of the last Czar

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 17 September 2020]

1926 , three Russian exiles (Yul Brynner , Sacha Pitoeff, Akim Tamiroff) in Paris plot to collect ten million pounds from the Bank of England by grooming a destitute , amnesical and suicidal girl Anna Koreff (Ingrid Bergman) to pose as heir to the Russian throne . 18-year-old orphan Anna is chosen by General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) and convinces her that she could be the long lost princess and as incarnate Anastasia , the last surviving member of the Romanoff dynasty. As such , she becomes part of a scam to collect millions of rubles deposited in a foreign bank by her supposed father Nicolas , the now-dead Czar , after the fall of Russian Empire due to 1917 Revolution . While Bounin is coaching her he comes to believe she is really Anastasia . And Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (incomparable Helen Hayes) as the key to the conspiracy . In the end the Empress must decide her claim. From the sensational Broadway stage success that had audiences crying its acclaim!. The Great Ingrid Bergman as the mystery woman - Anastasia ; in her Best Actress Academy Award winning title role. WHEN THESE TWO MEET... But is she just impersonating the princess ? it is the beginning of the most amazing conspiracy the world has ever known!.The most amazing conspiracy the world has ever known, and love as it never happened to a man and woman before!

Enjoyable and attractive film concerning a strong drama freely based on facts , in which a girl disguising as a Russian princess , but the premise is the following : Is she really Anastasia ? . Based on Marcelle Maurette's play with big success in Broadway and all around the world . This is a charming movie in which Bergman returned to Hollywood, as Ingrid Bergman won her second Oscar in the title role , and deservedly so , for the classy portrayal of amnesia victim chosen by Russian expratiate Brynner to impersonate Anastasia . As Yul Brynner as the arch-conspirator is magnificent ,playing perfectly the scheming White General ; however , both actors are out-acted by Helen Hayes who steals the show giving a sensitive acting as the Grand Duches who needs to be convinced . Support cast turn in fine acting as well , such as : Martita Hunt , Akim Tamiroff , Sacha Pitoëff , Felix Aylmer , Natalie Schafer, Ivan Desny, among others.

The motion picture was competently directed by Anatole Litvak. He was born in Ukraine and stayed in Germany working . Litvak's stay in Germany was cut short by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Litvak moved to France, and directed Mayerling (1936), starring Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux. His first film in Hollywood was The Woman I Love (1937), which starred his future wife Miriam Hopkins. His experience with diverse aspects of stagecraft, as well as his fluency in four languages enabled him to competently tackle a wide variety of subjects: from sophisticated continental comedy : Tovarich (1937) to historical drama : Anastasia (1956)) and romance All This, and Heaven Too (1940). Litvak was at his best directing taut, suspenseful crime dramas, such as Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart, ; and two tough action films starring John Garfield: Castle on the Hudson (1940) and Out of the Fog (1941). Having become an American citizen in 1940, Litvak enlisted in the US army and collaborated with Frank Capra on the wartime "Why we Fight" series of documentarie s. Arguably his best film was the superb thriller ¨Sorry , wrong the number¨and the splendid psychological drama ¨The snake pit¨ (1948), Hollywood's first attempt to seriously examine the treatment of mental illness . Indeed, the film was so influential that it precipitated changes in the American mental health system . And this ¨Anastasia¨that has a high-rating : 7/10 , better than average . And it received effusive praises from critics and very good reception by the public.

Spectacular!!!

[rupie · 9/10 · 25 December 2014]

What a wonderful movie!!!! They simply don't make them like this anymore. Start with the most mundane matters, the production values. The glorious wide screen aspect ratio is a delight, as is the wonderful Technicolor process, which gives us a vividness that is sorely lacking from movies nowadays. The great Alfred Newman wrote the score. Then consider the acting - first rate on all fronts. Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergmann play beautifully off each other, and Akim Tamiroff shines in the type of role he excelled in, the sweaty, seedy, slightly comic con artist. Martita Hunt is wonderful as the slightly loony lady in waiting. Helen Hayes is off the charts as the Dowager Empress, in what was evidently a comeback role for her. To watch her display her ambivalent emotions as she deals with what could be her long-lost granddaughter are a revelation. Her wordless final embrace with Anna is a ten second master class in the heights to which great acting can rise through facial expression alone. Finally, the script; it impishly refuses to engage the central question - was Anna Anderson really Anastasia, or an impostor? (FYI, she was an impostor.) By the end, the question doesn't seem to matter, so beautifully has the script dealt with things like lost hopes, wishful thinking, doubt, deceit, treachery, nostalgia for a lost world, romance, and amnesia. Don't miss this great story, beautifully told in a lavish production.

Very interesting and well done film

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 14 March 2017]

Sure, 'Anastasia' may be inaccurate, especially with DNA and forensics confirming the real fate of Princess Anastasia around 2007 (well after the numerous film adaptations based on the fascinating "what if" story were made, of which this is one). This said, it is a well done and interesting, if imperfect film on its own merits.

While it is not quite one of her best performances (in a career that includes her timeless performances in 'Casablanca' and 'Gaslight'), Ingrid Bergman is nonetheless exceptional in the title role, bringing equal vulnerability and dignity with intelligence, poise and nuance. People will argue whether she deserved the Oscar or not, part of it may be due to it being a comeback performance or for personal reasons but also the Academy could also have thought it that good a performance, personally have nothing against her winning while thinking that she has been better.

Yul Brynner is similarly very good, portraying Bounine with some subtle menace but also authority, wit and likability. If 'Anastasia' was released in a different year to his Oscar-winning turn in 'The King and I' (a case of him dominating that film in a more colourful role than here, and the chemistry between him and Deborah Kerr was stronger than between Bergman) he would most likely have gotten some kind of award nod (not since 1942 with Teresa Wright in 'The Pride of the Yankees' and 'Mrs Miniver' was the same actor nominated in the same year for more than one film).

One mustn't overlook Helen Hayes (also in a "comeback" performance though for different reasons to Bergman, having suspended her career due to her daughter's death and her husband's health), who gives a powerful and poignant performance as the Empress, a role so far removed from her usual roles. If there was one performance that deserved an Oscar or at least a nomination it was Hayes, and that she didn't is something of an enigma. Nor the delightful scene-stealing of Martita Hunt.

The acting is not the only reason to see 'Anastasia'. The film is very well made, with exquisitely opulent costumes that give a real sense of time and place, sumptuous scenery of London, Copenhagen and Paris and positively luminous cinematography. Alfred Newman's music score is one of his most stirring and beautifully orchestrated, in a career full of scores of both those qualities.

Much of the script is witty, literate and clever, if at times a bit rambling, largely succeeding too in putting flesh on the bones. Most of the story is gripping, helped by that the story it's based on is one of the most intriguing there is, especially telling are the scenes between Bergman and Hayes, very powerfully written, emotional and beautifully performed by both actresses.

'Anastasia' for all these great things is not perfect. The ending does feel abrupt and it felt somewhat of a cheat for the point of the story to be left ambiguous. It may have been due to being careful not to offend but this was a kind of story that deserved to have that question answered, and to be perfectly honest ambiguous/open to interpretation endings tend to generally not do it for me.

Was expecting more chemistry between Bergman and Brynner, which comes alive in the dialogue and the delivery but not on screen between them. It's all well played and competent with some wit, but one misses the fire, love and passion which was clearly meant to be there but doesn't quite come alive here. Some of the pacing drags too, with the workmanlike and sometimes impressive but too often undistinguished and too measured direction not helping.

Overall, not perfect but interesting and very well done on the whole. 7/10 Bethany Cox

A definite "must-see"!

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 25 August 2017]

Principal players: Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia), Yul Brynner (the prince), Helen Hayes (the dowager empress).

Interesting players in supporting roles: Akim Tamiroff (Chernov), Martita Hunt (the baroness), Ivan Desny (Prince Paul).

Principal production personnel: Director: Anatole Litvak. Screenplay: Arthur Laurents, based on a stage play by Guy Bolton (which was in turn based on a TV play by Marcelle Maurette). Photography: Jack Hildyard. Color: DeLuxe. Art directors: Andrei Andrejew, Bill Andrews. Music: Alfred Newman. Producer: Buddy Adler. 20th Century-Fox. 105 minutes.

Official release date: 13 December 1956. New York opening at the Roxy.

COMMENT: Deservedly a great commercial and critical success, "Anastasia" won numerous awards, including America's two top Best Actress citations for Ingrid Bergman and a National Board of Review "Best Actor" for Yul Brynner.

The story, of course, has been heavily romanticized, but Litvak's aim was to deliver spellbinding entertainment, and this, with the support of an engrossing script, a charismatic cast and well over $3.5 million in production values, the director has admirably achieved. Rarely has the super-wide CinemaScope screen been so consistently utilized with such power and dramatic impact. In color, only "Broken Lance", "The River of No Return" and "The Virgin Queen" run "Anastasia" close.

The DVD can be obtained on the 20th Century-Fox label. Quality rating: ten out of ten.

The one that got away?

[tomsview · 7/10 · 1 September 2017]

If you can ride out the dull spots in this talky 1956 movie there is a fascinating story in there somewhere.

The film starts in 1928 as expatriate Russian supporters of the Romanov dynasty in Paris led by General Bounine (Yul Brynner), set up a scam to get their hands on a fortune left in a British bank by Tsar Nicholas II.

The idea is to pass off Anna Anderson (Ingrid Bergman), a homeless amnesiac, as the Princess Anastasia. The key to the plan is to make Empress Maria Feodorovna, the Tsar's mother, accept Anna as her long lost granddaughter.

According to the film, fake Anastasias were popping up out of just about every bowl of cabbage borscht and Beluga caviar, but eventually Anna is so convincing that we are never sure if she is the real deal or not.

Although a number of scenes were filmed in Paris and Copenhagen, opening the film out, the first half is tough going, especially the scenes with Bounine, Boris Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) and the other plotters in stagy-looking sets – too many gabby, eccentric characters piled one on top of the other. I'm afraid Hollywood's stereotypes of Russian emigres of the period were just as tedious as their take on the denizens of Ruritanian Kingdoms that were also a speciality of the old studios.

However when Anna interacts with the Empress, the film has tension. Ingrid received the Academy Award for this role although these days she comes across as maybe a little too overwrought while Yul Brynner simply plays Yul Brynner.

Over the years, there have been some fascinating books written about whether or not Anastasia survived. Eventually the discovery of the bodies and DNA took all the fun out of the speculation, pretty well proving that she was murdered in 1918 along with the rest of her family. The real history of the end of the Romanovs is still a haunting story; a 2014 BBC documentary, "Russia's Lost Princesses", gives a brilliant insight into their lives and shocking deaths.

One thing about Anatole Litvak's "Anastasia" though, every time I see it, it fires my imagination to know more about the real events.

A compelling drama with a fascinating music score...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 9/10 · 18 September 1999]

In 1917, the Romanoff dynasty - rulers of Imperial Russia - were overthrown by revolution... Some of the nobility and their followers fled to safety but the Czar, his wife Alexandra and his five children were imprisoned and then slaughtered in a cellar in 1918 by the Bolsheviks...

Shortly after, rumors started that the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolayevna had not been murdered with the rest of her family but had escaped and was still alive...

In the years that followed, the whisper grew louder and louder... Several women outside Russia claimed her identity... All were aware that l0 millions pounds were at stake left by the Czar in the Bank of England...

The film opens in Paris 1928 - Russian Easter...

An amnesic woman, using the name of Anna Corev (Ingrid Bergman), is about to commit suicide on the bank of the Seine... She is saved by a White Russian General, called Bounine (Yul Brynner).

With a face hint by fatigue and stress, lost and broken, frustrated and unhappy, and tired to argue, she accepts modestly to be taken under care and to be trained by the General and his business associates Boris Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) and Petrovin (Sasha Pitoeff) in order to be passed off as Princess Anastasia, the daughter of the Czar of Russia...

Bearing a strong resemblance to the Grand Duchess, the plan of the Russian group can succeed... There is an opportunity for them to share the inheritance, the fortune left by the Emperor...

After days of training, the unknown lady becomes another woman... Elegant, radiant and healthy, arousing profound solemnity, dignity and even royalty...

The Grand Duchess wins her first victory when 18 of the 25 individuals recognized her as 'Anastasia,' but the most significant victory is yet to come... She must be recognized by her grand mother, the Dowager Empress of Russia, who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark...

Helen Hayes is simply superb as the melancholic old Empress with a wistful desire to accept the vague truth...

Yul Brynner plays his role with enormous task...

The motion picture marks Ingrid Bergman's comeback to the Hollywood cinema after the European exile... She gives a gracious, confused, eloquent, moving performance, following back the progress of a woman, from the deepness of hopelessness and confusion, through strenuous efforts with uncertainty and disillusion, to a successful display of bravery, self-respect and love...

Directed with elegance by Anatole Litvak, and with a fascinating music score by Alfred Newman, "Anastasia" is a combination of mystery and romance, a compelling drama with quite considerable charm which persuade without projecting any flame on history...

The party is over, go home!

[lasttimeisaw · 6/10 · 29 March 2016]

ANATASIA is a warm welcome vehicle for Ingrid Bergman, after her exile in Europe with her then- husband Roberto Rossellini, her first Hollywood feature since 1949, it won her a second Oscar.

Directed by Oscar-nominated director Anatole Litvak, the story is loosely based on a historical event, in 1927, Paris, Anna Koreff (Bergman), a woman who is suffering from amnesia and distress, has a remarkable resemblance to the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who is the youngest daughter of the late Tsar Nicholas II and may have miraculously survived the execution. Anna is coerced by a former Russian General Bounine (Brynner) and company, to impose Anastasia, so as to get an inheritance worth of £10 million. But to achieve that goal, Anna must get the approval from the exile Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Hayes), Anastasia's paternal grandmother, who firmly believes Anna is a hired hand like many others before and refuses to dredge up her wretched memories of the monarchy's abdication.

Over forty then, it is quite a stretch for Bergman to carry off an allegedly 26-year-old Duchess, but Anastasia's supposedly decade-long trials and tribulations give her a free pass when she appears disheveled, jaded and frail, attempts to drown herself in the Seine. The proper transformation is where Bergman reigns supreme, her star-appeal and royal flair glamorously ignite the screen and she is so in her comfort zone to exude vulnerability while remaining the nuance of regal dignity. It is a standard performance out of her competence, its Oscar reward is an over-achievement.

Brynner has a banner year in 1956, a one-two-three punch with THE KING AND I, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and this one, his blunt-talking eloquence and stern countenance mingled with an unspecifiable accent, are competent for a business-orientated mind, but the growing romance between Bounine and Anna, it is too understated to detect. And Helen Hayes, the picture is also a grandiose showcase for the First Lady of the American Theatre, her conversion from steely negation to emotional capitulation is so cliché but her sterling acting is abounding in pathos and reverberations, and upstages everyone else in the cast. Also, Martita Hunt is a flamboyant hoot as Baroness Elena von Livenbaum, the first lady-in-waiting of empress.

"The party is over, go home!" Empress Marie's imperious remark concluded this identity- discovering mystery with an anti-climatic finish, the thematic revelation (as corny as it is) of falling in love with a person as she is, sounds like a wishful thinking and feels as vague as the true identification of Anna Koreff, which the film cautiously toys with.

A typical Hollywood excesses on the production scale, where all the sophistication yields to a simplified open-face romance, ANASTASIA is beguilingly banal and banally beguiling.

A POWERFUL TRIFLE

[marcosaguado · 5/10 · 19 March 2004]

Big themes, treated with a tabloid sensibility. Within its historical context the Ingrid Bergman saga is much more juicier than that of Anastasia herself. After the Rosellini scandal, this was Bergman's return to the graces of the American public. The Oscar was, without question, a reward for her personal ordeal than for her performance. (That same year Carroll Baker was nominated for Elia Kazan's "Baby Doll" Katharine Hepburn for "The Rainmaker" and Deborah Kerr for "The King and I" not to mention Nancy Kelly for "The Bad Seed". The scene between Bergman and Helen Hayes, however, makes the whole, plodding thing, very worth while.

A candy box of a movie--filled with treats

[Poseidon-3 · 7 February 2002]

America gave a belated welcome home to Ingrid Bergman in this film (her first studio-produced movie after being practically banished from the US for having an illicit affair and an illegitimate pregnancy!) It was thanks to her rather regal nature and the persistence of Darryl F. Zanuck that she even got the chance. The story is a fictionalized account of what became of a Russian princess believed assassinated with the rest of her family during the Russian revolution. Like several others before her, Bergman's character turns up believing that she could be a surviving royal---in her case Anastasia. Brynner is a con man who doesn't particularly care if she is or is not the princess, so long as the Dowager Empress (Anastasia's grandmother) believes that she is. In order to fully enjoy the film, one must say goodbye to a lot of the cold, hard historical facts and just accept the film as a dramatic fantasy. Bergman shines in the title role (though at 41, was a touch too old to be playing this character!) She has the right European strength and dignity, beaten down by time and turmoil. She's a heroine to root for (much more so than the actual woman she is based on.) Brynner completes a stunning threesome for 1956 with this film and his work in "The Ten Commandments" and "The King and I". He and Bergman make a compelling pair. An added bonus is the rather surprising casting of Helen Hayes as the Grand Duchess. She was choen in order to win the approval of Americans who had reviled Bergman previously...if a monument to American values like Hayes approved enough to appear in the film, then the rest of the country had permission to enjoy it. Though some reviewers didn't approve of her at the time, her scenes are filled with great professionalism and, finally, stirring emotion. Her stoic countenance is quite a contrast to her impish work with Disney and other projects later. The supporting cast is colorful and interesting as well (keep an eye peeled for "Mrs. Howell" of "Gilligan's Island"!) Special mention goes to the effervescent Hunt who steals every frame of film she appears in. The icing on the cake is Alfred Newman's magnificent score. The music is grand and appropriately Russian and royal in flavor. (Some of it was derived from original Russian works.) It adds the perfect feel to this gloriously beautiful film.

Ingrid Bergman driven entertainment 1956

[rome1-595-390251 · 6/10 · 4 August 2014]

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.

Very watchable but slightly cold

[LouE15 · 7/10 · 27 August 2008]

Wonderfully charismatic Yul Brynner, and a 'reborn' Ingrid Bergman – making her reappearance in Hollywood after years in exile – star in this slightly odd film, a fantastic reworking of an original true story. Anna Anderson (Bergman), sick, amnesiac and slightly mad, is brought from the brink of self-destruction in 1920s Paris to dubious life by a group of mercenary, cynical exiled White Russians led by General Bounin (Brynner). As they groom her to convince their fellow exiles that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, rumoured to have escaped the firing squad that destroyed the rest of the Tsar's family, Bounin's feelings about his and her 'part' in the 'play' become more complicated.

There's an interesting mix of things going on here: great, clever script, strong cast, hot leads, but something doesn't quite gel so that you're left (or at least I was) wanting just a little bit more than you get. I'm used to seeing Yul Brynner generate chemistry with any actress he plays opposite – so I was surprised to hear, and see for myself, that in this film the sparks only fly in the script. But also, the whole, wordy film was shot in a terribly 'British' way (I can get away with saying that!)…the camera is almost always too far away to get that incredible intimacy of shot and reaction-shot which is so much a part of screen chemistry.

The great Helen Hayes makes up for it amply as "Grandmamma", the Dowager Empress whose belief in Anna's addresses is crucial to the whole enterprise and whose tired face, and withering one-liners, usually aimed at her marvellous lady-in-waiting, form the chief humour of the piece. But close-ups of Anna and Bounin are as rare in this film as hen's teeth: at crucial charged moments between them (when Anna is petulant, drunk, when he is jealous, letting slip that he has started to care), the camera is on the other side of the room, watching with all the indifference of a translator. Incomprehensible – try Brynner and Deborah Kerr in "The Journey" only three years later for exactly the kind of close-up driven chemistry I mean – and with very different results from the slightly chill effect here. Granted, Brynner's cynical character in "Anastasia" is correctly summed up by Bergman's as "vodka – cold, hard, sharp" – but even a cold, hard, sharp man can fall in love – surely this is precisely the dramatic opportunity that's been thrown away? A typical example: Bounin has whisked Anna off back to their suite, cutting short a romantic encounter with exactly the man Bounine wants her to be with; she drunk on champagne, he impenetrable and just a shade jealous. She calls drunkenly to him from her room and, from a fly on the wall position in the central suite, we see him, slowly, respond to her calls. He doesn't know that she's already fallen asleep: what, then, is he walking towards as he stalks into her bedroom with his catlike, dancer's grace? The sexual charge is lost en route to the distant, static camera: like being in the 'gods' at the theatre, you know that something exciting is going on down there, but you can't make it out.

Rant over; the story is intriguing and well-played, despite the real Anna Anderson's claim having been firmly discredited now. Bergman seems quite literally to be acting to save her soul – as indeed she was – begging her passage back to a hypocritical Hollywood, which must have been pretty galling. But I think Bergman is better in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness", and Brynner, under-used here, is better in "Invitation to a Gunfighter" and the excellent "The Journey".

a version of the Anna Anderson story

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 30 January 2013]

"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.

Well deserved Oscar for Ingrid Bergman

[zetes · 9/10 · 17 May 2003]

Excellent film about a group of Imperial Russian expatriates who try to pass off a nobody as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who was supposedly executed along with the rest of her family a decade ago. No one knows, not even the woman herself, whether she is or is not Anastasia. Ingrid Bergman plays this woman in her glorious return to Hollywood after several years of exile on account of the affair she had with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. History, or at least some of us film buffs, see her exile as something other than shameful, but you can't really judge Anastasia without seeing it as a homecoming. The story echoes Bergman's life, as I'm sure it was meant to. Can this Anastasia convince those who once knew her that she really is the long lost Grand Duchess? Can Ingrid Bergman convince the American public that she is worthy to be taken back into their confidence? To answer the first, you'll have to see the film. The answer to the second question is a definite yes, as the film was quite successful and earned Bergman her second Academy Award, which she much deserved (her first was for 1944's Gaslight). She was not present at the ceremony in 1957 to accept that award, but I'm unsure of whether she was still in exile at that point. The film was made outside of the U.S.

After Bergman, there is still a whole lot to love. As for the other actors, Yul Brynner, playing the man who enlists Bergman in his plot to win Anastasia's inheritance, gives a fine performance, easily the best of the three films he made in 1956, even though he won an Oscar for his ridiculously over-the-top performance in The King and I. Akim Tamiroff, always reliable, gives one of his very best performances as Brynner's assistant. Helen Hayes is great as the dowager empress whose opinion is absolutely necessary to accept Bergman as the real Anastasia, and Martita Hunt gives a delightful comic performance as her attendant (she was the best thing in the film, in my opinion). The musical score, by Alfred Newman, won the only other Oscar nomination for the film, and it is excellent. The dialogue is wonderful. There are only a couple of things I didn't like, and they are relatively minor. Nearer the beginning, for instance, the screenwriter (or the original playwright) has a problem keeping the ambiguity of whether Bergman is actually Anastasia or not. The hints the woman gives off are instantly convincing that she is the lost woman. Fortunately, this improves over the course of the film and the ambiguity becomes somewhat more pronounced. I'm not sure whether I liked the ending, either, although it has a great last line (which I expect was even greater when it was a play).

It's not much about rational suspension of disbelief but emotional inclination for belief..

[ElMaruecan82 · 7/10 · 23 August 2021]

History is often written with an ink of blood, and if one can't ignore the crimes committed by the Tsar Nicholas II, it takes a heartless penmanship to rewrite the execution of the Imperial family as a pragmatic necessity rather than an act of needless cruelty. In other words, which sane and sound mind can accept that four young girls and an adolescent boy would perish by firing squad bullets on a dark isolated cave? Wouldn't we wish to believe there were survivors?

Legend wanted that emotional vacuum to be filled by the Grand Duchess Anastasia but science put an end to all speculative fantasies when it showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that Anna Anderson had no Romanov DNA, still, the point is here: we *wanted* to believe that she survived. Emotions are involved here, not reason, that's pretty good material for a story and that's the soul of the original play by Marcelle Maurette about a young suicidal woman groomed by opportunistic Russian swindlers to pass as the Tsar's surviving daughter.

The play is set in 1928, after the grieving of the fallen Empire had reached the resignation stage, and when former General Sergei Boubin (Yul Brynner) finds Anna, the mad house escapee wandering in Paris, looking for a spot to drown her sorrow and herself in the process, it's not humanity that motivates him, it's not even the mere possibility that she could be the princess that raises his interest but the the potential claimant of one million pounds in the Bank of England belonging to her family, such a fortune is worth saving a woman and lying about her identity.

These shady motives aren't hidden at all and there are reasons for that: we know from the get-go that we're dealing with crooks, despite the majestic presence of Brynner, one should look at the trio he forms with Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) and Petrovin (Sacha Pitoëff) as 'civilized gangsters'. Secondly, given all their efforts to fill the fading memory of Anna with resourceful information, we know that she doesn't believe it either but she has no alternative. She's a victim-accomplice so to speak and at that point of the review, I can't go on without praising (and praising is an understatement) the intensity of Ingrid Bergman as Anna, her performance -as movie buffs know- earned her a second Oscar-nominated win after her role as another woman under a troubling influence in "Gaslight".

Which makes me believe there's a sort of natural disposition in Bergman to play women overwhelmed by so many internal demons that any step, any choice, any word, can push her further down in the very descent into madness she tries to escape from. The harder she does and the quicker she's pulled back into the very game that threatens her own sanity. While it was love in "Casablanca", mental sanity in "Gaslight" or family vs. Career in "Autumn Sonata", "Anastasia" offers the most harrowing conflict: identity with again, Anna as both part and outsider in the scheme because pretending to be Anastasia would at least provide her an identity to hook on, and not the least. She has good reasons to commit bad things, and that -too- is good material for a story.

That she doesn't know who she is is the best guarantee that the con might work, as says Boubin: no one can prove who she is not if they don't know who she is. And given the inner vulnerability of Anna and the state of starvation and fatigue she was found in, they knew she couldn't refuse an act that would provide her -with an identity- food, a room and a life. There's a sort of Faustian deal in the opening act that makes Anna a rather tragic character and her outbursts of nervous laughs and cries more than Oscar-baity moments, but genuine expressions of sincerity that only Bergman could play without a false note. Her acting is forceful and poignant and heart-wrenching that it even makes us forget that she was 13 years older than the princess she supposedly looked like. In a sort of meta-referential way, she challenges our own suspension of disbelief as she does with the persons who knew the Tsar's family. We believe because we want to, emotions, not reasons again, so through our own appreciation of Bergman we can understand the effect of her own character.

And "Anastasia" is truly a character-driven story, we don't care much about the inheritance and during the middle-act, it's relegated to a sort of McGuffin level when the real mission is to convince Empress Marie Feodorovna to meet her 'granddaughter'. Her endorsement would change the tide in the right direction but the old dowager exiled to Denmark and played with stern sensitivity by Helen Hayes, would have none of it... and it's all in the way she's getting more and more intrigued by that woman who dares have a resemblance with Anastasia that we get to the emotional core of the film.

Now, "Anastasia" is certainly more remembered for marking the triumphant come-back of Ingrid Bergman after her Hollywood blacklisting but I doubt the film was ever considered a classic to begin with. Still, this is a well-costumed merry-go-round of emotions spinning around the identity axis, conveyed by a Bergman at the top of her form, in this enjoyable ride of ups-and-downs orchestrated by a competent director who knows how to dispose his characters and use Russian music in the background allowing Brynner to demonstrate his talent at the guitar and pay a tribute to his ancestry.

But truly this is Bergman's movie and it gratifies us with one of the best acted sequences ever, between Hayes and Bergman, one that covers such a wide range of emotions it's not a roundabout but a rollercoaster of tears proving that it's all about suspension of disbelief driven by the viewer's inclination to let emotions dictate his reaction. Isn't that the essence of cinema after all?

Fascinating

[fletch5 · 8/10 · 30 December 2001]

Ingrid Bergman is as luminous as ever in her Oscar-winning performance in this gorgeous-looking costume drama. Baldhead Yul Brynner is ideally cast beside her and there are some delightful characters in the supporting cast, namely Akim Tamiroff and Martita Hunt, but Helen Hayes steals the show with her touching portrayal as the old empress. The film feels somewhat theatrical with its abundance of dialogue, but it's definitely a fine piece of work.

Bergman and Hayes

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 17 December 2021]

The Russian Tsar and his family were executed in 1918 during the Russian revolution. Soon afterwards, rumors spread that the youngest daughter Anastasia had escaped. It's 1928 Paris. Anna (Ingrid Bergman) is a destitute woman who claims to be Anastasia. General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) had been collecting fees to find the princess even though he doubts her existence. He sees an opportunity with Anna to collect the £10 million account from a London bank that belongs to the royal family.

Bergman is marvelous. She has the regality of royalty and she can also act downtrodden. She's great winning an Oscar. On the other hand, I don't like Yul Brynner's character. I'm not saying that his acting is bad. I just don't like this character. Brynner has a way that accentuates his harshness. I don't buy the romance. There is much more feeling with the Empress. In the end, that is the best relationship. Helen Hayes is amazing. She has so much chemistry with Bergman. This movie should be about these two women.

Great performances from the three leads

[eddax · 10/10 · 16 February 2010]

I'm right now reading a biography of Ingrid Bergman so I took it upon myself to watch this movie to remind me of her charms. And a better movie I couldn't have chosen. Bergman embodies the well-known role of Anastasia wonderfully, from rags to riches, from a vagabond half-mad to a princess in love. But it's a movie in which all the stars shine, and Yul Brynner blends dignity and resentment well as the fallen Russian general, and Helen Hayes is utterly believable as the exiled Dowager Empress who has lost her daughter and grandchildren to the Russian Revolution. Watching the trio interact is watching art in motion, which may sound melodramatic, but it's how I feel when I'm watching brilliant actors play off each other. When Anastasia and the Dowager Empress come to the realization that she is indeed the lost princess, I was brought to the brink of tears. It came as a surprise to me; I generally don't watch movies that would make me cry and I certainly didn't expect it from this one. Finding an unexpected gem is what makes slogging through piles of crap worthwhile.

Similar to the animated version

[HotToastyRag · 6/10 · 6 July 2020]

Everyone knows Ingrid Bergman won her second Academy Award for Anastasia as Hollywood's way of forgiving her for running off to Italy for a few years. She didn't actually give a career-best performance in the movie. As long as we have that out of the way, we can watch the movie without high expectations.

In the famed story of the lost Romanoff princess, Ingrid stars as the young woman without a memory of her past. When she meets con artist Yul Brynner and his sidekick Akim Tamiroff, they convince her she's the long-lost Anastasia. They teach and train, filling her with facts and memories from Anastasia's past, preparing her for the final test: meeting the Dowager Empress, Helen Hayes. As Anastasia's grandmother, she will be able to spot an imposter if she sees one. Along the way, Yul and Ingrid fall in love.

This sounds a lot like the animated version, doesn't it? Well, if you've seen that one, you'll be in great shape to pay better attention to this long, wordy version. There are no songs to get you through, but there are plenty of beautiful gowns, interesting historical tidbits, and lovely set designs to keep you interested. If you're a fan of the cast, especially Helen Hayes, you'll want to check this out. The First Lady of American Theatre gets quite the spotlight in this movie, even though she doesn't come in until the end.

Overrated costumer

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 13 August 2006]

Critics were too quick to applaud this musty adaptation of Marcelle Maurette's play starring Ingrid Bergman as a rag-woman picked by crafty businessman Yul Brynner to be groomed into Russian royalty Anastasia, a Duchess long though deceased. Helen Hayes is exceptionally good as the cautious Dowager Maria, whom Ingrid must work hard to convince, however Bergman herself (despite winning a Best Actress Oscar for this 'comeback' performance) is mannered, and she has no on-screen rapport with Brynner whatsoever. As a result, the romantic underpinnings of the story do not come off, and the thin plot keeps going after all its pieces have already come into play. The production is appropriately opulent, but the film isn't especially moving or memorable. ** from ****