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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:

Duke d'Orléans: Paris is waiting for you... lights, music, dancing, the opera. A new world is waiting for you! Conquer Paris and you'll conquer Madame Du Barry.
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!
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.
Count Axel de Fersen: I must let you go. Goodbye.
Marie: Good night. Or, if you wish good morning. I shall never say goodbye.
Marie: Take me in your arms again. Let me have that memory. When I loose heart to go on I shall close my eyes, feel your arms about me. I shall know that I'm in your thoughts, that your loving me...
Count Axel de Fersen: Always, my dear... always.
Marie: ...giving me strength to live... goodbye, my love. (they kiss)
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Marie Antoinette Facts
This film features only two of Marie Antionette and Louis XVI's two children. They in fact had four children. Their first son, Louis-Joseph, died at the age of eight of TB. In 1785 Dauphin County, Pennsylvania was named for him as a thank you to France for helping America win its independence. Their last child, Sophie Helene Beatrice, died before her first birthday.
From its initial inception up until right before the cameras started to roll, the film was designed to be shot in Technicolor. All of the sets and costumes were designed with color in mind. MGM went as far as to send the fox cape that Norma Shearer wears (to see Henry Stephenson on the night she becomes Queen) to New York to be specially dyed to match the blue of her eyes. Fearing that the addition of Technicolor would swell the already mammoth (for the time) $1.8-million budget, the production went before black-and-white cameras instead.
The film credits Louis XI as uttering the famous quip,"After me, the deluge" referring to the upcoming chaos of the French Revolution. However, it is his most celebrated mistress Madame de Pompadour who is historically credited to have made this comment to Louis XI. France played a disastrous role in the Seven Years' War, which among other loses, included losing Canadian territory to the much hated British. But it was after the humiliating Prussian defeat in the Battle of Rossbach that caused Pompadour to comfort the king by saying to him,"After us, the deluge" as France emerged from the war diminished and virtually bankrupt and greatly reduced the king's popularity.
Gladys George (who plays du Barry) and the real Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du Barry, share the same death day. George died from a cerebral hemorrhage on Dec. 8, 1954, while the comtesse was a victim of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and was guillotined on Dec. 8, 1793 - less than two months after Marie Antionette's own execution.
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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