Anastasia (1956)

Anastasia
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by Arthur Laurents from a play by Marcelle Maurette and Guy Bolton
1956/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Anastasia: The poor have only one advantage; they know when they are loved for themselves.

I liked this for the acting and was intrigued by the story.

The setting is Paris, 1928.  Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, left a fortune in a bank in London that would go to any of his immediate survivors.  There have been several unsuccessful claimants to the inheritance already.  General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner), an ex-retainer to the Imperial Court, has organized a committee of fellow exiles to finance a search for the czar’s daughter Anastasia who is rumored to have survived the execution of the Czar’s family.  He and his co-conspirators are now on a tight 8-day deadline to come up with an heiress.  Sergei has been on the trail of one Anna Koureff (Ingrid Bergman), a young Russian woman who has been heard in several mental asylums to refer to herself as Anastasia.  Sergei actually believes Anastasia is dead and has been on the search for a credible, trainable substitute.

Anna herself is not certain who she is but has powerful memories that lead her to believe that she may be Anastasia.  She is a hit with the expatriate Russian community.  She makes a conquest of the princess’s cousin Paul.  She looks less likely to convince Anastasia’s extremely skeptical grandmother the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (Helen Hayes).  With Akim Tamiroff as one of Sergei’s partner’s in crime and Martita Hunt as a lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Empress.

I enjoyed this.  Parts reminded me a lot of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady without the humor.  Bergman was good, though I don’t know that I would have singled this performance out for an Oscar, and Yul Brynner proves himself to be more that a one-trick pony.  The film is lavishly produced.

Ingrid Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Actress.  Alfred Newman was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer