Mayerling (1969)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

emotion. great actors. tragic love story. and few sketches of political context. nothing more. it is easy to criticize it if you ignores the purpose. and the purpose is simple - to show a beautiful film , soft, pink, full of romanticism, touching like each soap opera, dramatic for wake up noble tears and emotions from the public, generous in recreate the atmosphere. costumes, jewels, the right couple - Deneuve and Shariff, impressive Ava Gardner and right James Mason as imperial couple. short, a tragic fairy tale. and it is strange to expect more. because it is not a documentary. maybe a good opportunity for comparisons ( Ava Garden and Romy Schneider in the skin of Elisabeth). a seductive romantic perspective about the fate of Rudolph of Habsburg.

I have lately been on an Omar Sharif binge. Mayerling is his third movie that I have seen these past few weeks. My mother was a fan of this movie. I never understood why. Now that I am old enough myself I understand the appeal of Mayerling. The sets are opulent. The cinematography is wonderful. And oh my were Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve beautiful! They looked incredible together! Although Deneuve's acting lacks a certain passion I felt Omar Sharif's performance, especially in the last scene, was quite touching. James Mason didn't have enough to do despite playing the character of the emperor. Ava Gardner looked older than her age. The sexual content and nudity, though tame by today's standards, is a bit crude. I have watched this movie three times and each time by the end of the movie I am shamelessly crying. Of course such love does not exist in real life but this kind of movies make one wish that it did.

"Mayerling" purports to be the story of Crown Prince Rudolf and his lover, the Baroness Vetsera, who died in a suicide pact at the Mayerling hunting lodge in 1889. It has an amazing international cast: Omar Sharif, Catherine Denueve, James Mason, Ava Gardner, Genevieve Page, and James Robertson Justice. Which just goes to show you that an all-star cast doesn't make a great movie. You need a script and some direction for that.In the '60s, these grand period pieces were all the rage. "Mayerling" is highly fictionalized, full of events that never took place. What actually happened at Mayerling is a mystery, so we'll never know about that. The unhappy Rudolf, left out of anything political by his father, drinks and womanizes. When he meets Maria Vetsera, she falls madly in love with him and (supposedly) he with her, but he is ordered by his father to end the affair. The two enter into a suicide pact at the family hunting lodge.Rudolf, in fact, is a weak man, and it allegedly took him six hours to shoot himself after killing Maria. But no one has any idea what went on - there have been stories of murder as well, and when Maria's body was stolen, when the body was identified, it was shown that she had died from a blow to her head and no gunshot wound was found.Director Terence Young has done some marvelous work, including Wait Until Dark, but something went amiss here. The film moves very slowly and is totally lacking in anything that would help the viewer invest in any of the characters. There are glorious production values and sex but a coldness about it. Sharif and Deneuve give stilted performances, and Mason and Gardner don't have much to do. James Robertson Justice and Genevieve Page are very good.On a side note, Gardner plays Rudolph's mother, "Sisi," who to this day is the Princess Diana of Austria. She's everywhere, and a popular subject of musicals and films targeted to European audiences.

Omar Sharif is Archduke Rudolf, the scoundrel heir to the Austo-Hungary empire whose love for Maria Vetsera spelled his doom. The fact that Catherine Deneuve plays Vetsera will help you to understand how that could happen. Beyond some great chemistry between the two stars, there's very little to recommend in this dull film. Though set against the backdrop of Austria at a time of intense unrest (the early stages in the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy), director Terence Young does not exploit that intrigue in the least. Instead the film is lumbering when it should be exciting. The acting is very uneven. Sharif is fine but Deneuve seems very distant. As the walrus mustached Franz Joseph I, James Mason is wasted and Ava Gardner, as his wife, shows up in a few scenes encouraging Sharif's obsession with Deneuve. On the plus side, there's James Robertson-Justice, excellent as a wily Prince of Wales and Genvieve Page as Sharif's matchmaking cousin. The cinematography by Henri Alekan is stunning. Written by three people, including Young.