The many screen faces of Catherine the Great
Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 10:00PM 
Hulu's The Great is just the latest in a long string of portrayals of Catherine II of Russia, most commonly known as Catherine the Great. Since the time of the silents she's been a recurring topic for filmmakers, whether they're portraying her as the sex-crazed tyrant some propaganda painted her as, or trying to celebrate the legend and legacy of her time as empress. The Great makes her the spunky heroine of a black comedy, but she's also been a romantic lead and a romance's foil, an innocent pawn, and a Machiavellian master.
Looking back at the documentation we have about the real Catherine, one thing's for certain – she was incommensurably more interesting than any single movie character can ever hope to be. That's not going to stop us from exploring her various screen portrayals…
The Eagle (1925)
One of the first major motion pictures about Catherine the Great was Forbidden Paradise, a 1924 silent directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The German filmmaker had abandoned his home country in 1922, finding a new home in Hollywood where he created some of the most elegant sex comedies you ever did see. Forbidden Paradise though, was a historical drama with romantic undertones that starred Polish actress turned American star Pola Negri as a young Catherine. Louise Dresser gave life to a more mature version of the character in 1925's The Eagle, directed by Clarence Brown.
In that movie, Catherine isn't the lead, rather an important supporting character whose unwavering authority allows her to conclude the story with a joyful deus ex machina. While this is one of Rudolph Valentino's best pictures, Dresser steals the show. She's especially good in the early scenes when her Catherine is allowed to turn the tables on Valentino's usual shtick. For once, he's the one being pursued by a powerful woman, instead of the lothario going after some innocent maiden. It's both delightful and sexy, making for a rather light portrait of the Russian monarch.
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Almost a decade after The Eagle, Dresser would return to the story of Catherine. This time, though, she portrayed Empress Elizabeth against Marlene Dietrich's glamorous take on the great Catherine. The movie was Josef von Sternberg's glorious The Scarlet Empress, a biopic turned into an Expressionist hallucination pulsing with barbarism and derangement. Of all these productions, this one is my absolute favorite, for it blends the lustful opulence of Old Hollywood with the lunacy of German Expressionism. It feels like a nightmare of History, a grotesque vision of Slavic Hell gilded in gold and encrusted with pearls.
Moreover, unlike many movie Catherines, Dietrich's take on the character is neither pawn nor villain, but a powerful woman as ambitious as she is smart. The same can't be said for Elisabeth Bergner in a British production of the same year. Korda's The Rise of Catherine the Great portrays the Tsarina as a meek princess who, above all else, loves her husband. It may seem blasphemous to say such a thing about a film with that title, but the most compelling part of The Rise of Catherine the Great is her monstrous husband. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is extraordinary as Peter III, mixing charisma with paranoia, the ravings of a madman, and the poisonous charm of a king of the silver screen.
A Royal Scandal (1945)
Throughout the 1930s, other international productions tackled the character of Catherine, but it would take Hollywood another decade to dedicate another movie to the Empress. It happened, once again, under the guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, though he exited the production before the film was completed. 1945's A Royal Scandal was officially directed by Otto Preminger with Tallulah Bankhead in the iconic role. Her take on the character is a sullen marvel, befitting the racy comedy of the script. While the movie is nothing special, Bankhead's anachronistic gowns are to die for and her chemistry with William Eythe's handsome soldier is sizzling. Watching them play with domination and submission in the setting of a Rococo palace is a thrill.
To write about all the Catherine the Greats of the big screen would take an entire book, for they are numerous and disparate in equal measure. For instance, in 1959, Bette Davis had a cameo in John Paul Jones as the grand empress. Hers is a small role that is entirely built around the weight of two legends in communion, that of the 18th-century ruler and that of the movie star. In contrast with that imperious version of the character, 1968's Great Catherine once again tries to make light comedy out of Catherine's famed reign and promiscuity. This time around, it's French goddess Jeanne Moreau who plays her, taking her cues from a screenplay based upon a George Bernard Shaw's stage production.
Catherine, The Great (1996)
Like Dresser before her, Moreau would return to the cinematic universe of Catherine II to play Empress Elizabeth. It happened in the 1990s when Catherine Zeta-Jones took on the role of the famous Tsarina for a TV movie of little interest. If Scarlet Empress is my favorite version of this historical tale, 1996's Catherine the Great is the one for which I have the least affection. Some of the costumes are satisfactory, one supposes, and Moreau is luminous during the flick's first half. After Elizabeth dies, however, the whole movie dies with her.
That wasn't the only TV production from the 90s to tackle the history of Catherine. In 1991, Julia Ormond played her in The Young Catherine, a two-part miniseries that tries very hard to paint the Empress in the most flattering light possible. To do that, her political maneuvering is made secondary to her innocence, suggesting a naïve ruler who had little agency of her own. As is usual when it comes to the story of Catherine the Great, the saving grace of this vegetative drama is the actress playing Empress Elizabeth. Vanessa Redgrave's the one that does the honors this time, exploding unto the screen like a bomb of autocratic pettiness. Hers is an erratic performance, exuding cold resolve one moment and mercurial fury the next. For her efforts, Redgrave received a well-deserved Emmy nomination.
Catherine, The Great (2019)
After the two TV Catherines of the 1990s, the Empress was, for many years, either relegated to cameo appearances or european productions that are hard to come by. That said, last year saw another Catherine the Great be crowned in Hollywood when Helen Mirren starred in an HBO miniseries about the monarch. Sumptuously dressed and paced like a narcotized funeral march, Catherine the Great is closer to mediocrity than its titular greatness. It doesn't help that the romance between Mirren's empress and Jason Clarke's Grigory Potemkin is both devoid of chemistry and the narrative's central element. Between the pretension of historical importance of the HBO series and the joyful fiction that is The Great, I'll pick the second every time.
Who's your favorite Catherine the Great of the screen? Is she among the ones we mention here or perhaps not, like Marina Aleksandrova in Russian TV's Ekaterina?
Reader Comments (7)
You forgot Marina Alexandrova from Ekaterina series from 2014 and Yuliya Signir from Catherine The Great 2015. Both were Russian series and historically accurate and better quality compared to series you listed above. On top of that, they actually speaking Russia.
Mirren's ultra glamour take on this part was misjudged,I think it was the way it was filmed she seemed almost cgi'd onto the sets.
The Scarlet Empress is an absolute classic. No film or tv series can come close. And Louise Dresser and Sam Jaffe are total hoots. Worth watching for the art direction alone, but there's so much, so much more.
I too saw Mirren's miniseries version and I think seeing that before Fanning's THE GREAT really made me appreciate the latter more. I was literally falling asleep for most of Mirren's show.
"The Scarlet Empress" is delirious cinema
Glad redgrave got a nice shout out. For people who look at her filmography and shake their heads, here TV work thru the 1980s and 1990s is truly remarkable and shows a much greater range then her often thankless film roles do.
Agree with Peter. But it's also like my problem with folks going on an on about Broadway performances that I'll never experience or see more than a snippet of Youtube clip of. I can respect the general consensus around a great achievement, but when i'll never be able to form my own opinion around the work it does make me lose a little interest in giving that work which will never be seen much thought. I really want to dig into Lee Remick's (especially haywire) and Elizabeth Montgomery's television works, but I can't seem to source it.
Also I mourn not being able to see Teresa Wright as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.