The Scarlet Empress (1934) on Netflix
Passed19341h 44mDramaHistoryRomance
Princess Sophia Frederica travels from East Prussia to Russia to marry Grand Duke Peter, the heir to the throne. Empress Elizabeth renames her Catherine and demands a male heir.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.5/108,024 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sophia Frederica grows up in East Prussia as the child of a minor prince, and her tutor reads to her about Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and other czars. Count Alexei brings her to Russia on Empress Elizabeth's orders, to marry Elizabeth's nephew, Grand Duke Peter, who stands to inherit the throne. Elizabeth renames her Catherine and expects a male heir from the match. Peter keeps away from his bride after their wedding night, preferring his mistress and his soldiers, toy and real. Alexei courts Catherine and gets nowhere. At a dinner he tries to pass her a note asking to meet, and Elizabeth intercepts it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For The Scarlet Empress, Swiss sculptor Pete Babusch made hundreds of gargoyle-like sculptures of male figures crying, screaming or in agony, and they line the hallways, decorate the royal thrones and even appear on serving dishes in the Russian palace.
- Josef von Sternberg set the imperial court in the Kremlin in Moscow rather than Saint Petersburg to make Russia look backward, and showed the royal palaces as wooden and full of free-standing religious sculpture, which is not part of the Orthodox tradition.
- Sam Jaffe's part as Grand Duke Peter, the future Emperor Peter III, was his first role in a feature film.
