The Abdication (1974)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Anthony Harvey

Writers:

Ruth Wolff (play)
Ruth Wolff (screenplay)

Release Date:

3 October 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History

Tagline:

A woman with a profane love... for a man of God.

Plot Keywords:

Queen | 1650s | Historical | Rome Italy | Cardinal

Cast

Peter Finch	...	Cardinal Azzolino
Liv Ullmann	...	Queen Kristina
Cyril Cusack	...	Oxenstierna
Paul Rogers	...	Altieri
Graham Crowden	...	Cardinal Barberini
Michael Dunn	...	The Dwarf
Kathleen Byron	...	Queen Mother
Lewis Fiander	...	Father Dominic
Harold Goldblatt	...	Pinamonti
Tony Steedman	...	Carranza
Noel Trevarthen	...	Ginetti
Richard Cornish	...	Charles
James Faulkner	...	Magnus de la Gardie
Edward Underdown	...	Gustaf II Adolf, Christina's father
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Franz Drago	...	Birgito
Suzanne Huddart	...	Young Kristina
Ania Marson	...	Ebba Sparre
Debbie Nicholson	...	Young Ebba

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:Btl | USA:PG

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Michael Dunn's final film.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Liv Ullmann scener fra et liv (1997)

THE ABDICATION (Anthony Harvey, 1974) **1/2

This film was shown once on local TV in the early 1980s (but I was too young to watch it) and then fell completely off the radar in the interim; however, thanks to the God-sent overhaul that TCM UK has finally decided to give its long-decaying schedule of endlessly-repeated titles, I was able to finally catch up with it after some 25 odd years! Not because the film has any kind of reputation per se but its credentials are certainly impeccable and European History has always been one of my favorite subjects in school (and one in which I excelled in). The story of Sweden's Queen Christina had already been dealt with magnificently by Rouben Mamoulian in his eponymous 1933 film which had provided Greta Garbo with arguably her greatest role; this being made a good 40 permissive years later, the independent-minded Protestant monarch (Liv Ullmann) renounces her faith and throne to sneak into the Vatican and pour out her lesbian longings for a childhood friend onto a Roman Catholic Cardinal (Peter Finch) engaged to investigate her well-documented wanton ways and her newly-professed piety! The two stars, reunited a year after Ross Hunter's maligned 1973 musical version of LOST HORIZION, are practically the whole show here despite being surrounded by opulent sets and a cast of thespian notables: Cyril Cusack (as Christina's guardian), Graham Crowden (as a fellow Cardinal), Edward Underdown and Kathleen Byron (as, respectively, Christina's chivalrous father and embittered mother) and diminutive Michael Dunn (in his last film as Christina's enigmatic servant). Celebrated cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth shoots the opening abdication scenes in moody candlelight, bathes the film in mist during Christina's childhood reminiscences and lends it a sunny look during her liberated passages; Nino Rota's music score is also appropriately sensitive or soaring according to the film's moods. Incidentally, another failed historical/religious charade featuring Liv Ullmann I would like to see is Michael Anderson's POPE JOAN (1972)…who knows if TCM UK will likewise surprise me and provide the opportunity to catch up with it in the not-too-distant future?