Koenigsmark (1935)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur

Film Review

The most lavish production that director Maurice Tourneur turned his hand to in the 1930s was this big budget adaptation of Pierre Benoît's popular 1918 novel Königsmark.  The novel had previously been adapted in 1923 by Léonce Perret, and would later be remade by Solange Térac (in 1953) and Jean Kerchbron (in 1968 as a television film).  Tourneur's film was a Franco-British production and exists in two versions that were shot in parallel,  a French version (Königsmark) and an English version (Koenigsmark).  Apart from the three principals - Pierre Fresnay, Elissa Landi  and John Lodge - the two films have different casts but are, in all other respects, identical.  Koenigsmark was the only English-language film directed by Tourneur, although he had directed many films in Hollywood during the silent era.

The star of Koenigsmark was Elissa Landi, a glamorous Italian-born actress who had been raised in Austria and who had a natural aristocratic bearing which made her ideal for the kind of role she plays in this film.  Landi had previously starred opposite Robert Donat in the phenomenally successful The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) but her career hit the rocks when MGM terminated her contract after a dispute about a particular role.  Landi never recovered from this career setback and retired from acting in 1943 so that she could concentrate on what she really wanted to do, which was write novels.  In Koenigsmark Landi is partnered with another rising star of the era, Pierre Fresnay, who had recently found fame through Marcel Pagnol's Marius (1933).  Fresnay was one of the few French actors of the time who could speak English fluently, as he demonstrated previously in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and so gives a compelling performance in both versions of the film.   Fresnay's bilingual skills were matched by John Lodge, who is equally excellent in both films in the role of the villainous Grand Duke Frederick.  After a high-profile acting career in the 1930s, Lodge served with distinction in WWII (winning the French Legion of Honour) and subsequently turned to politics, becoming Governor of the state of Connecticut in the 1950s and later the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland.

Under Tourneur's expert direction, Koenigsmark is a visual tour de force which impresses most with its grand set pieces depicting court life as its most extravagant, evidenced by the stunning wedding sequence.  The film's grandeur does however get in the way of the plot, undermining the amorous intrigue involving the two central protagonists, the Grand Duchess Aurore and the romantically inclined tutor Vignerte.  The cold theatricality of Landi's performance, which isn't helped by her stilted dialogue and habit of talking into the fourth wall, makes it hard to sympathise with her character, whilst Fresnay comes across more as an amateur sleuth than a lovelorn romantic - the chemistry between the two actors is pretty well non-existent.   Landi is far more effective as the strong-willed leader, a tough matriarch able to stand up to the Machiavellian machinations of her rival, the Grand Duke Frederick.  The film's pro-feminist slant is quite striking, all the more so when you consider that it was not until 1944 that women acquired the right to vote in elections in France.  It is significant that, as her country becomes drawn into World War I at the end of the film, Aurore feels she has no choice but to abdicate - she will have no part in the testosterone-fuelled blood-letting that has engulfed Europe.

Film Synopsis

In 1912, the princess Aurore accompanies her father to the European principality of Lautenburg, where the king, her uncle, tells her she is to marry his heir, the Grand Duke Rodolphe.  Aurore knows that she must accept the arrangement, but she makes it clear that she has no love for Rodolphe and insists that their relationship remains platonic.  Six months later, Rodolphe is away in Equatorial Africa when he contracts a serious illness and dies.  Whilst in mourning, Aurore strikes up a friendship with Raoul Vignerte, an intellectual Frenchman hired by her husband's brother Frédéric to tutor his son.  Vignerte is attempting to resolve the mystery of Koenigsmark, a famous court intrigue, when he discovers a secret passageway behind a chimney in the royal palace.  The passageway leads to the remains of a dead body, amongst which Vignerte finds a medallion with a portrait of Aurore - the very same medallion she gave to her husband before he set out for Africa.  It soon becomes apparent that the Grand Duke Rodolphe was murdered by his brother so that he could usurp his title...