Tarakanova (1930)
Tarakanova is a 1930 French historical drama film directed by Raymond Bernard and starring Édith Jéhanne, Paule Andral and Olaf Fjord. It depicts the life of Princess Tarakanoff, the pretender to the throne of Catherine II in Eighteenth Century Russia.
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Reviews
Perfect cast and a good story
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The intrigues of Imperial Russia provided a fertile source of melodrama for filmmakers during the 1920s, and at first glance this lavish French production would seem to present a familiar variation of a foolproof romantic formula. The far-fetched but enjoyable story introduces a handsome young General who falls in love with a beautiful gypsy girl being groomed in secret to assume the throne in place of a look-alike princess, who meanwhile refuses to abandon the holy anonymity of her convent hideaway...and so forth and so on. Sadly, the film itself has dated pretty severely after all these years, and the awkward 'sonorization' (the synchronized music and sound track added during the mad, post-'Jazz Singer' rush into talkie technology) only makes it appear even more stiff and static when seen today. Of academic interest only.