It's sad that Audrey Hepburn's version of Mayerling was not originally done on the big screen. She seems so right for the lovely teen mistress of Prince Rudolf, heir to the Hapsburg Empire. The murder/suicide of the two of them is the stuff legends are made of and one certainly has sprung up concerning the lovers.
Audrey's fans are interested in it because of the fact she appears with her then husband Mel Ferrer as Rudolf. Ferrer is all right as the heir who has traces of madness in him. My favorite mad king performance is that of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Catherine The Great. If Doug were 20 years younger and did it with Audrey it would have been a great production. But the package was the married couple.
Rudolf inherited the wild side from his mother Empress Elizabeth who was a wild child. See Franchot Tone and Grace Moore portray young Franz Joseph and the young Cissi in The King Steps Out. She like Rudolf never settled down though you would not know it from Diana Wynyard playing it here.
Basil Sydney is the proper Emperor Franz Josef who always thought of duty first. The real sleeper performance here is that of Raymond Massey as Count Taaffe the Prime Minister. You decide whether he's a villain or a hero. Nehemiah Persoff and David Opatoshu play Massey's personal gumshoes from the secret police assigned to Rudolf as a Rosenkrantz&Guildenstern act.
This was supposed to be done in color, but only a black and white print survives. The sound is not of the best quality either.
But Audrey's fans will love it.
Audrey's fans are interested in it because of the fact she appears with her then husband Mel Ferrer as Rudolf. Ferrer is all right as the heir who has traces of madness in him. My favorite mad king performance is that of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Catherine The Great. If Doug were 20 years younger and did it with Audrey it would have been a great production. But the package was the married couple.
Rudolf inherited the wild side from his mother Empress Elizabeth who was a wild child. See Franchot Tone and Grace Moore portray young Franz Joseph and the young Cissi in The King Steps Out. She like Rudolf never settled down though you would not know it from Diana Wynyard playing it here.
Basil Sydney is the proper Emperor Franz Josef who always thought of duty first. The real sleeper performance here is that of Raymond Massey as Count Taaffe the Prime Minister. You decide whether he's a villain or a hero. Nehemiah Persoff and David Opatoshu play Massey's personal gumshoes from the secret police assigned to Rudolf as a Rosenkrantz&Guildenstern act.
This was supposed to be done in color, but only a black and white print survives. The sound is not of the best quality either.
But Audrey's fans will love it.