Anastasia

Based on the legend about the sole-surviving daughter of Russia's last Czar, this film is very well done with an excellent cast, international locations, and an evocative soundtrack.

This was Bergman's return to American film after being shunned for having an extra-marital affair at a time when America was caught in the height of self-righteous McCarthyism. She proved that she could still hold the screen even with the likes of her very powerful co-stars.

The story follows the progression of a lost soul from suicidal depths to resurrection as a lost princess and concludes as a fairy tale. The elderly empress points out at the end that the play is over -- go home.

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.

This is a film that should be re-released. I mean at the motion picture theaters besides video and DVD. Nothing changed. Ingrid Bergman, Helen Hayes and Yul Brynner do superlative acting performances and the direction, music and the cinematography just could not be duplicated, in my opinion.

Other films have been redone with contemporary actors, some successful and some not so.

It would be very difficult to improve on this one. I have seen this film a few times over the past forty years and I appreciate it more and more.

Wish we could have more quality cinema like it!

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.

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.