In the same year as Hollywood brought out Josef von Sternberg's Scarlet Empress with Marlene Dietrich, Alexander Korda's London Films produced a rival version of the story of the Russian czarina, a lavish spectacle made interesting by some very clever casting: the diminutive Elisabeth Bergner as the shy German princess destined to rule Russia, and dapper Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as her mad and malevolent husband Peter. Bergner's pixieish quality (especially in Escape Me Never and As You Like It, her next two films) hid a strength that made her one of the great, if today largely unknown, film actresses of the thirties. Here her duality is well used in a character who grows from a demure lass whose life is ruined by a rigidly planned marriage amid the elaborate machinations of court intrigue, to the powerful czarina who mounts the throne as her husband is being taken away. Georges Perinal's cinematography and Paul Czinner (Bergner's husband and frequent collaborator)'s sensitive direction allow this drama-while no more factual than any that Korda did before or since-a deeper look at the personalities who made history...or something like it.