Copyright by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 11 November 1932. New York opening at the Mayfair: 11 December 1932. U.K. release: 27 May 1933. Australian release: August 1933. 6 reels. 59 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: An unscrupulous, utterly ruthless Wax Museum Svengali, plans to pass off a poor Parisian flower girl as the Crown Princess Anastasia.
NOTES: Other versions of the story include Anastasia (1956), Is Anna Anderson Anastasia (1956) and Anastasia (1997).
COMMENT: A fascinatingly film-noirish thriller, skilfully and often inventively directed at a stirringly driving pace by Edward Sutherland, who makes dazzling use of Carroll Clark's many wonderfully bizarre sets and exotic set-pieces. John Warburton (whatever happened to him?) is most appealing as the heroic anti-hero (a difficult role which Warburton brings off beautifully), while Miss Andre is almost equally engaging as the unwittingly benumbed innocent. Our old friend, Gregory Ratoff, is in there pitching (perhaps just a little too hard) as the brutal heavy. Not to be outdone, Frank Morgan seizes every opportunity (especially in disguise) to make the film his own.
Aside from Arnold Korff, Christian Rub and Kendall Lee, the rest of the players have little to do, though it is nice to spot Murray Kinnell as the famous Bertillon and Rochelle Hudson as a police operative. A few pleasing touches of humor lighten an otherwise horrifying story, and it's surprising to find such blatant anti-German sentiments in a movie as late (or early) as 1932.
Photographically, the film is most attractive. Every set-up is superbly lit, and at least one sequence is so electrifyingly imaginative as to give the lie to the bad press Gilks was later to receive from director Vincente Minnelli who described his work on An American in Paris as meticulous but stodgy.
SYNOPSIS: An unscrupulous, utterly ruthless Wax Museum Svengali, plans to pass off a poor Parisian flower girl as the Crown Princess Anastasia.
NOTES: Other versions of the story include Anastasia (1956), Is Anna Anderson Anastasia (1956) and Anastasia (1997).
COMMENT: A fascinatingly film-noirish thriller, skilfully and often inventively directed at a stirringly driving pace by Edward Sutherland, who makes dazzling use of Carroll Clark's many wonderfully bizarre sets and exotic set-pieces. John Warburton (whatever happened to him?) is most appealing as the heroic anti-hero (a difficult role which Warburton brings off beautifully), while Miss Andre is almost equally engaging as the unwittingly benumbed innocent. Our old friend, Gregory Ratoff, is in there pitching (perhaps just a little too hard) as the brutal heavy. Not to be outdone, Frank Morgan seizes every opportunity (especially in disguise) to make the film his own.
Aside from Arnold Korff, Christian Rub and Kendall Lee, the rest of the players have little to do, though it is nice to spot Murray Kinnell as the famous Bertillon and Rochelle Hudson as a police operative. A few pleasing touches of humor lighten an otherwise horrifying story, and it's surprising to find such blatant anti-German sentiments in a movie as late (or early) as 1932.
Photographically, the film is most attractive. Every set-up is superbly lit, and at least one sequence is so electrifyingly imaginative as to give the lie to the bad press Gilks was later to receive from director Vincente Minnelli who described his work on An American in Paris as meticulous but stodgy.