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Marie Antoinette Overview:

Marie Antoinette (1938) was a Drama - Drama Film directed by W.S. Van Dyke and Julien Duvivier (uncredited) and produced by Hunt Stromberg and Irving Thalberg.

The film was based on the biography Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman written by Stefan Zweig 1932.

SYNOPSIS

A long, lavish biopic chronicling the life of the French queen (Shearer) who wanted only a simple life on a farm, but was finally consumed by the French Revolution. Central to the film's story, adapted from the best-selling biography by Stefan Zweig, are the intrigues at Versailles and the scandal of the diamond necklace. Power, on loan from Fox (in exchange for Spencer Tracy's appearance in Stanley and Livingstone), plays Marie's Swedish lover Ferson and Morley is excellent as weak Louis XVI. A big-budget showcase for Shearer's return after a two-year absence while she grieved the loss of husband and MGM production chief Irving Thalberg. While Sidney Franklin spent years preparing to direct the film, studio boss Mayer forced him to stand back and allow no-nonsense Van Dyke to take over.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Academy Awards 1938 --- Ceremony Number 11 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Supporting ActorRobert MorleyNominated
Best ActressNorma ShearerNominated
Best Art DirectionCedric GibbonsNominated
Best Music - ScoringHerbert StothartNominated
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Marie Antoinette BlogHub Articles:

Marie Antoinette (1938)

By Beatrice on Dec 2, 2013 From Flickers in Time

Marie Antoinette Directed by W.S. Van Dyke Written by Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart, and Ernest Vajda based in part on the book by Stefan Zweig 1938/USA Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer First viewing I am not big on 2 1/2 hour-plus costume dramas … especially if Norma Shearer is going to play a tee... Read full article

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Marie Antoinette Quotes:

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Why, this is barbarous! Must the queen's child be born in public?
Count de Mercey: Dr. Franklin, a French monarch belongs to the public. He must be born, he must live and he must die in public.
Marie: Perhaps the great loves come with tears.
Count Axel de Fersen: I must let you go. Goodbye.
Marie: Good night. Or, if you wish good morning. I shall never say goodbye.
King Louis XVI: I am not going to run! What do you say, brother?
Comte de Provence: I say run and you'll loose your crown!
Comte d'Artois: And I say stay and you'll loose your head!
Count Axel de Fersen: When I'm gone you'll be glad that I didn't stand in the path of your destiny making you less than you were meant to be.
Marie: And that other kingdom? The love, the youth, the happiness we might have had... what of that?
Count Axel de Fersen: We shall dream of it more tenderly because we didn't destroy it.
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Marie Antoinette Facts
The sound director, Douglas Shearer, is the brother of Norma Shearer and had served as such in many other films of this era.
There is a key scene in that film where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are dancing the Charleston at the "Bedford Falls High School" prom, when suddenly the gym floor slides open, plunging the dancers into a swimming pool. (Later, when walking home, wearing a bathrobe, Donna gets stuck in the bushes without any clothes on.) That dance scene was filmed using an actual covered swimming pool in the gym at Beverly Hills High School (241 Moreno Drive) near Century City. The gym is located on the south side of the campus, near the high school's track.
The film became the favorite movie of Eva Perón, who so admired Norma Shearer style that she later dyed her hair blonde.
MGM's recreation of the ballroom at Versailles was twice as large as the original.
William Randolph Hearst campaigned heavily for Marion Davies (Hearst's mistress) to star as Marie Antoinette. Davies didn't get the role and ended her contract at MGM and went to Warner Bros. along with Hearst.
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