1) J’adore le quatorze juillet, and there are a few film clips it is always refreshing to view. First up, this snippet from near the end of a famous French film, Le Collier de la Reine (1946), in which Marie Antoinette finally figures out what’s to come. The entire film used to be up on Yewtybbe, but all I can locate now is this clip.
2) A few years before, Hollywood gave us its version, Marie Antoinette (1938) starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power. Someone once asked a famous actor — I think it was Spencer Tracy — for some advice about acting. His response: “Don’t get caught.” Alas poor Norma, she gets caught in every scene! No wonder she’s better remembered for The Women. But the supporting cast is amazing: John Barrymore as Louis XV, Gladys George as La DuBarry, my beloved Anita Louise as the Princesse de Lamballe, Joseph Schildkraut as the Duc d’Orléans (he also appears in The Rains Came), and Robert Morley as Louis XVI. Who knew, he was nominated for an Oscar for this, and it was only his second film!
2a) Sorry, Squarespace won’t let me link to the Internet Archive the same way it will to the Yewtybbe.
2b) This film is based on Stefan Zweig’s biography Marie Antoinette: Portrait of an Average Woman, one of the books I discovered and still have from Boston Book Annex, a favorite haunt in college. A Freudian approach of her life, I vaguely remember that it was later discovered he omitted facts that disproved his thesis. But his descriptive powers are magnificent. Later today I will reread his account of her trial and execution, as I often do.
2c) Production Code censorship required the writers to gloss over the most basic elements of the story (Louis XVI being unable to consummate the marriage, the adulterous affair between Antoinette and Axel Fersen, etc.) which really limits is. And the second half quite frankly plods. So if you don’t feel like watching the second half, I’ll forgive you.
3) Finalment, the beloved rendition of La Marseillaise in Casablanca (1942).
3a) And actually finally, my favorite French phrase ever.
