Great Catherine (1968)

Director:

Gordon Flemyng

Writers:

George Bernard Shaw (play)
Hugh Leonard (writer)

Release Date:

29 November 1968 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

By day she was Catherine the Queen. By night she was Catherine the Great.

Plot Keywords:

Revolutionary War | Irreverence | Cossack | Escape | Diplomat

Cast

Peter O'Toole	...	Capt. Charles Edstaston
Zero Mostel	...	Potemkin
Jeanne Moreau	...	Catherine
Jack Hawkins	...	The British Ambassador
Akim Tamiroff	...	Sergeant
Marie Lohr	...	Dowager Lady Gorse
Marie Kean	...	Princess Dashkoff
Kenneth Griffith	...	Naryshkin
Angela Scoular	...	Claire
Kate O'Mara	...	Varinka
Gerald Lawson
Lea Seidl	...	Grand Duchess
Oliver MacGreevy	...	General Pskov
Norma Foster	...	Mongol
James Mellor	...	Colonel Pugachov
Claire Gordon	...	Elizabeth Vokonska
Declan Mulholland	...	Count Tokhtamysh
Janet Kelly	...	Anna Schuvalova
Henry Woolf	...	Egrebyomka
Catherine Lancaster	...	Sophia
Alfred Ravel	...	Glazier
Gordon Rollings	...	Glazier
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Darryl Read	...	Young Peter
Sean Barrett	...	Andrei Strelkin (uncredited)
Yuri Borionko	...	Henchman (uncredited)
Tom Clegg	...	Mongol (uncredited)
Alf Joint	...	Russian General (uncredited)
Reuben Martin	...	Henchman (uncredited)
Dinny Powell	...	Mongol (uncredited)
Milton Reid	...	Henchman (uncredited)

Directed by
Gordon Flemyng

Writing credits
George Bernard Shaw		(play "Great Catherine Whom Glory Still Adores")
Hugh Leonard		(writer)

Produced by
Jules Buck	....	producer

Original Music by
Dimitri Tiomkin

Cinematography by
Oswald Morris

Film Editing by
Anne V. Coates

Casting by
Maude Spector

Production Design by
John Bryan

Art Direction by
William Hutchinson		(as Bill Hutchinson)

Costume Design by
Margaret Furse

Makeup Department
Bill Lodge	....	makeup artist
A.G. Scott	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Ed Harper	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Peter Bolton	....	assistant director

Art Department
Ferdinand Bellan	....	scenic artist
Pamela Cornell	....	set dresser (as Pam Cornell)
Leon Davis	....	construction manager (as Leon Davies)
Tim Hutchinson	....	set designer (uncredited)

Sound Department
Paddy Cunningham	....	sound mixer
Don Sharpe	....	dubbing editor

Special Effects by
Les Bowie	....	special effects (uncredited)
Peter Hutchinson	....	special effects assistant (uncredited)

Stunts
Joe Powell	....	stunts (uncredited)
Nosher Powell	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Laurie Ridley	....	still photographer
Brian West	....	camera operator

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Ivy Baker	....	wardrobe supervisor
Ron Beck	....	wardrobe master
Arthur Newman	....	dresser: Mr. O'Toole

Editorial Department
Barry Peters	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Dimitri Tiomkin	....	conductor
David Tamkin	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Phyllis Crocker	....	continuity
Peter Perkins	....	assistant to producer
Paddy Stone	....	choreographer
Harry Woolveridge	....	production executive

Production Companies

• Keep Films

Distributors

• National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (1977) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Warner-Pathé Distributors (1968) (UK) (theatrical)
• Warner Brothers/Seven Arts (1969) (USA)

Special Effects

• Bowie Films

Also Known As:

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | USA:G | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Keep Films

Trivia:

The last film score composed by Dimitri Tiomkin.

Movie Connections:

Version of Young Catherine (1991) (TV)

A Distant Memory Now

Bernard Shaw wrote GREAT CATHERINE (WHOM GLORY STILL ADORES) back in the teens, and it is occasionally revived. Not all of his plays get revived. In particular his "short" plays. GREAT CATHERINE is a one act play, and it runs about ninety minutes (short, in comparison to say PYGMALION or MAJOR BARBARA). As it is a historical play, one has to note that Shaw - while he tried to be accurate on his history in his plays - based his history on the current state of knowledge, which was usually not as correct as we now know.

Basically, GREAT CATHERINE is about how a young British officer is sent to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, one of the most fascinating rulers in Europe in the 18th Century. He is involved not only with her, but with her crafty chief minister, Potemkin (whom the battleship in the classic Eisenstein silent film is named for). The officer attracts her attention because he is handsome, and the British Minister is fully willing to let him see the Empress, as he may hear something of use and he may "ease" Anglo-Russian relations. As it turns out, the young ninny is such a believer in middle class morality that he blows a great opportunity, loses a chance to witness a great figure in world history, and even - unwittingly - so misunderstands things that he accidentally insults her. Only her own sense of values keeps her from taking up an offer from a furious Potemkin to have the young man killed.

The basics of the play are kept in the movie, but it was jazzed up a bit. Jeanne Moreau makes a very attractive, sexy, alluring Empress. Peter O'Toole is a proper aristocratic numskull. Akim Tamiroff is a comic guard, browbeaten by his boss Potemkin (played with relish by Zero Mostel - a nice historical part for him for a change). Also, in one of his last roles, the now tragically silenced Jack Hawkins, giving his all as the British Ambassador.

I have given the film a 6, for it's attempt to record a minor play by Shaw, for it's cast, and for a scene I liked that dates the play - when O'Toole is supposed to show how the battle of Bunker's Hill was fought. The confrontation ends with the total demolition of the model of the battlefield. It is a minor sequence, but I did like it. But for all I do like about the film, if you are interested in the best work of George Bernard Shaw I would not go to this film first.