I viewed this film for the first time a week or so ago on dvd and it's stayed with me. I assumed it would be a lavish piece of MGM fluff from the 30's and found a far more substantial film, that of course only MGM could have made at that time. Norma Shearer and Robert Morley were both nominated for Oscars for this film and both lost. Shearer was an actress I knew very little about and Morely was this rotund comedic actor (at least I thought so) for many decades. Both of them give here (in my opinion) their best onscreen performances. The last half hour of this very long film (with overture and an intermission) was quite compelling, even though I knew the eventual outcome. In this last half hour, Shearer without make-up and wigs, just tears your heart out with her performance. Cameraman William Daniels was so expert at b&w lighting and he was superb in this film. This was Director W.S. VanDyke's film after he'd made 'San Francisco' a year before, he got excellent performances from his cast. The music (which was nominated for an Oscar as well, but lost) was composed by Herbert Stothart, a composer I've never really regarded with much acclaim in the past. But his lush score (a lot of music here) was superb! Here I give three small clips from the film giving a glimpse of the actors, and the music. If you haven't seen the film, give it a try.
MARIE ANTOINETTE is a spectacular production, beautifully performed by its principals, and a compelling Hollywood version of the historical record.
I've never quite understood the public venom directed in Stothart's direction over the past thirty-or-so years---though I have suspicions about who is/was involved and why---but, for myself, I've always found his work very stylistically identifiable and generally excellent when he had time---in about 8 or so pictures a year---to do it. That said, I've never been as great a fan of Stothart as I have of some other Golden Age composers.
On the other hand, when we have his scores "in the clear" and near complete---like the wonderful FSM releases of NORTHWEST PASSAGE and, particularly, the absolutely lovely DRAGON SEED---I am always startled and surprised at how good, melodic, and detailed they are in their constructions---and worthy of the best accolades. I hope you've bought at least these two, Montana Dave!
MARIE ANTOINETTE was five months in production, and the furniture and props---real antiques---were purchased by an MGM Art Department Group of Decorators who traveled to Europe during the depression years of the mid '30s with cash in hand and bought the household belongings of the bankrupt millionaires of Europe. MGM gave the group a budget of nearly $2,000,000 to buy anything and everything of value that could be used to grace MGM films. The result was their use in the very grand---and authentic---MGM productions like CAMILLE, ANNA KARENINA, CONQUEST, MAYTIME, MARIE ANTOINETTE, THE GOOD EARTH, THE EMPEROR'S CANDLESTICKS, THE GREAT WALTZ, and many more. (In a supreme irony, little MGM starlet Debbie Reynolds ended up with many of these purchases nearly 40 years later.)
The budget on ANTOINETTE was approximately $2,926,000 in 1938 dollars. With inflation calculation in place, that comes to approximately $47,000,000 contemporary 2011 dollars, which gives you a good idea of the careful budgeting of resources and manpower and facilities in Golden Age Hollywood. Could ANYONE today make MARIE ANTOINETTE as a completely designed and executed film with an all-star cast, for $47 million???
(Incidentally, in addition to William Daniels as credited cameraman, the film also employed others---like so many joint-effort MGM films. Uncredited as cameramen on the film were another of MGM's greats, George J. Folsey---nominated for 12+ Oscars---and another excellent, but now forgotten cameraman, Leonard Smith.)
As many of you probably know, Debbie Reynolds is selling her collection at auction. She has about 3500 costumes warehoused, and asked me to help her identify about 100 which were otherwise not catalogued or attributed.
It's curious you brought up MARIE ANTOINETTE today, Montana Dave, because last Thursday I was helping Debbie as she laid out a costume for this film which I then photographed for reference. It actually WAS one of Norma Shearer's for ANTOINETTE---supremely elegant and superbly designed and stitched---with Shearer's name still forlornly inked in script on a small fabric tape sewn along an inside seam.
One day soon this gown will be sold at auction and, nearly 75 years later, someone will be taking home a piece of MGM, the studio...Gilbert Adrian, the designer...MARIE ANTOINETTE, the movie...and Norma Shearer, the actress---all of whom are now long gone---and who exist only in our memories and TCM airings.
Like Dave, I would also recommend MARIE ANTOINETTE to any of you who would like to see the extravagant kind of period picture Hollywood was once able to turn out on a regular basis.
I've never forgotten that flashback as the curtain falls on Shearer's persona of Marie Antoinette. Famous last words, eh?
Robert Morley's forlorn King Louis was also very good. Totally resigned to his fate.
My father has this somewhere in his film collection. I must have seen it about 3 or 4 times over the years. Manderley, thanks for your eminently readable accounts. They are always a pleasure.
Somehow, somewhere, I do recall posting about this fine, tender/bittersweet score before.
Whoever at Warner Bros. put together the DVD of MARIE ANTOINETTE did so with an appreciation for the Herbert Stothart score. There is plenty of score without dialogue for a fan of the score to assemble a nice suite of music and the sound is nicely cleaned up.
1. Main Menu............................................0:31 2. Overture..............................................3:28 3. Credits......(OK, Leo roars)...................2:01 4. Ending scene before Intermission........0:41 5. Entr'acte..............................................3:02 (incl. song "Now and Forever") 7. Final Scene 44 ("To The Guillotine").....1:56 (a few words of dialogue) 8. Exit Music.............................................3:37
So you can cobble together about 15 minutes of score even without watching the film for other set pieces with lots of music and sparse dialogue.
The budget on ANTOINETTE was approximately $2,926,000 in 1938 dollars. With inflation calculation in place, that comes to approximately $47,000,000 contemporary 2011 dollars, which gives you a good idea of the careful budgeting of resources and manpower and facilities in Golden Age Hollywood. Could ANYONE today make MARIE ANTOINETTE as a completely designed and executed film with an all-star cast, for $47 million???
An article in Life magazine in July 1938, just after the film's Los Angeles premiere, noted that it cost "only" $1,000,000 to make due to director W.S. Van Dyke's economy.
During principal photography on "Marie Antoinette," portions of the film were shot on location at the recently completed Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, CA. The racetrack's facade was decorated to stand-in for the exterior of the Palace at Versailles. A press release on the film, from Robert M. W. Vogel of M-G-M's foreign department states, "The French government has authorized the Palace of Versailles to be photographed for the first time as a background in a motion picture." The Versailles backgrounds were edited into the racetrack footage in the completed film. It's said that M-G-M's recreation of the ballroom at Versailles was actually twice as large as the original.
MARIE ANTOINETTE was five months in production, and the furniture and props---real antiques---were purchased by an MGM Art Department Group of Decorators who traveled to Europe during the depression years of the mid '30s with cash in hand and bought the household belongings of the bankrupt millionaires of Europe.
For its New York opening, M-G-M press representative Howard Dietz arranged for a $100,000 "museum" quality exhibition at New York's Astor Theatre to publicize the picture.
There is plenty of score without dialogue for a fan of the score to assemble a nice suite of music and the sound is nicely cleaned up.
1. Main Menu............................................0:31 2. Overture..............................................3:28 3. Credits......(OK, Leo roars)...................2:01 4. Ending scene before Intermission........0:41 5. Entr'acte..............................................3:02 (incl. song "Now and Forever") 7. Final Scene 44 ("To The Guillotine").....1:56 (a few words of dialogue) 8. Exit Music.............................................3:37
So you can cobble together about 15 minutes of score even without watching the film for other set pieces with lots of music and sparse dialogue.
Ron Burbella
I'm not sure about the song "Now and Forever," but reportedly the score includes the song "Amour Eternal Amour," music and lyrics by Bob Wright, Chet Forrest and Herbert Stothart.
Stothart's score was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to "The Adventures of Robin Hood."
Posted: Aug 7, 2011 - 1:36 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: Bob DiMucci (Member)
I'm not sure about the song "Now and Forever," but reportedly the score includes the song "Amour Eternal Amour," music and lyrics by Bob Wright, Chet Forrest and Herbert Stothart.
Whoever at Warner Bros. put together the DVD of MARIE ANTOINETTE did so with an appreciation for the Herbert Stothart score. There is plenty of score without dialogue for a fan of the score to assemble a nice suite of music and the sound is nicely cleaned up.
Ron Burbella
The Warner DVD is one of my favorites: The complete roadshow verion mastered from an immaculate, glowing print. Imagne how it would look projected on a giant screen!
Saw this film for the first time decades ago, on a Sunday afternoon movie program in Pittsburgh, hosted by a local, supposedly film-savvy, celebrity, who pronounced the main character's surname as "AN-ta-net." (Even then I was studying French, and knew he was incorrect...)
I never thought I would be interested, but I was captivated by Shearer's rapturous attitude at the beginning, and became riveted by the seamless presentation, right up until the inevitable ending. It's really a masterpiece of MGM craft, the kind of production impossible nowadays. (And so totally different from that more recent, valley-girl version.)
I've always enjoyed Stothart's work, though I've thought he was more responsible for the MGM soft string sound, than for any particular score. It has always seemed to me that he was a master at arranging music written by others; he had an amazing gift for weaving other people's themes into a seamless whole. WIZARD OF OZ, for which he DID win the Oscar, OVER that other little potboiler in 1939, GONE WITH THE WIND, has not only some lovely melodies, but also interpolates all kinds of tunes, such as excerpts from "Night on Bald Mountain." But I can see why OZ won, because of a very real poignance Stothart was able to achieve in his string moments, another skill he presented so often in his scores.
There are actually a number of Stothart scores available, though not nearly enough. One of my favorites is RANDOM HARVEST, with that, yet again, poignant string theme in the final sequence. So effective. Stothart was a master, though not perhaps in the same way as the other giants of the period.
I still find it almost shocking that pictures like this were released as a matter of routine for decades, and at the time we expected them to be like this, with great production values, big stars, literate scripts, and memorable scores. That's just the way it was. And now, that's all gone, as if it never existed. Even the places where these films were made are now condos and shopping malls....
But, at least we still have the films, and that's something.
Thanks to you Manderley for your extremely informative and interesting observations on the film and the music. I knew NOTHING about the background on this film (that you described) and marvel at your knowledge about it. Imagine going to one of the garments worn by it's star and finding the names of 'Norma Shearer' as well as 'Adrian' on it's label. I'm surprised anything survives from the film it was so long ago. And thanks to Ron Burbella as well. After viewing the dvd, I simply returned it to Netflix. I didn't notice there were music selections separate from the film, in fact, I didn't even notice there was a 'special features' section. I'll have to rent it again and view it all over (as long as it is, it won't be a chore to view it a 2nd time) and play the special features.
fascinating info on a classic movie -- I have to dig out my dvd for watching again -- it is part of the MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECES box set collection .
no one mentioned that Tyrone Power costarred - it is his only film at MGM on loan from Fox - his acting may not be on the level of some of the old pros in this but he certainly looks great in period costumes opposite Shearer .
