Do You Look Like a Royal?

Everyone has their double they say and for some it is a royal double. At times the similarities can be downright creepy. My late maternal grandfather looked exactly like Belgium's King Leopold II, big nose and long beard and all -a beard he wore after having his chin shot off in Belgium during the battle of the Bulge. Don't feel sorry for him though, he was a rather horrid man all in all. But, there must be many people who resemble royalty considering the number of celebrities who have at least a passing similarity to a number of royals from around the world. Here are a few of them:

Valeria Bruni Tedeshi and Princess Maria Laura of Belgium

Marley Shelton and future Princess of Monaco Charlene Wittstock

Kristen Johnston and Crown Princess Maxima of the Netherlands

Joelle Milquet and Princess Caroline of Monaco

Gweneth Paltrow and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway

Lady Gabriella Windsor and Ivanka Trump

Bette Davis and Empress Carlota of Mexico

(with some makeup and wardrobe assistance)

Cinema Royal: Tami Stronach

I have never been a big fan of the “fantasy” movie genre (may the Tolkien fans forgive me) but one of my favorite books as a youth was (and remains) “The Neverending Story” by German author Michael Ende. This was made into a pretty good movie which was followed by a fairly stinky sequel (with no disrespect to the late Jonathan Brandis, God bless you) and then a third, little-seen sequel that stunk so bad I’ve never been able to get close enough to watch it. Ende did not like the first film, and it did stray a good deal from his book, but I liked it overall and, to be fair, much of what is in the book could simply not have been done with the special effects technology available in the 80’s. In the film she was portrayed by child actress Tami Stronach, a Scottish-Israeli girl born in Iran. Incidentally, it was the fall of the Shah and Iranian Revolution which forced her archaeologist parents to flee Iran.

In the movie the Childlike Empress appears only at the very end in the climactic scene but little Stronach has to do some heavy-duty acting in that one scene and I think she did very well (it was her only film role as her parents did not want her going down the usually tragic route of child actors). In the book her character is much more prominent and her position as the Empress of Fantasia (Phantasien/Fantastica in the book) in the novel and displays qualities that Ende surely picked up while living in Japan. In the book it is explained that the Childlike Empress does not really hold political power (there being really no government) nor does she have laws or armies to protect her as no one would think of attacking her because the very existence of her subjects is bound up in her own and she accepts all of her subjects as they are, good or bad -a very Buddhist sort of outlook one might say (though I will add, overall at the end of the book has very Christian themes). This at least appears to change in the book but I will try to stick with the film as much as possible here.

As stated, the Empress and her realm are one and just as the various creatures of Fantasia could not live without her, so too when the land of human fantasy is threatened by “the Nothing” the Empress becomes deathly ill. This gets the story going as a young warrior (Atreyu aka the kid from Battlestar Galactica for 70’s folks) is chosen to embark on a quest to find a cure for the Empress to restore her health and save Fantasia from “the Nothing” which is a vast and growing empty void caused, we are led to understand, by a growing lack of human imagination born of hopelessness. The young warrior returns finally to the Ivory Tower (home of the Empress) at the end of the movie thinking he had utterly failed only to have his young monarch (who in the book is referred to as ‘the Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes’) that he has not.

We see a glimpse of the larger story; that it is the Childlike Empress alone who sees the bigger picture, she knows what will cure her but the adventure was necessary to captivate the attention of the young boy reading the book in which their story is written who is to be her salvation; simply by giving her a name. This is true to the book, though for some reason in the movie they seem to imply that the young reader (one Bastian Balthazar Bux) chooses the name of his late mother for the Empress though the book says no such thing. The name he finally shouts out is the same as that in the book (“Moonchild”) but would seem a rather absurd name unless the mother was the daughter of a couple of 1960’s Deadheads or something.

Just in case there are some who have not yet seen the film I will try not to give too much away, but the young Tami Stronach really shines in her short but pivotal scene and with only a few lines is called on to convey a range of emotions from sympathy, amusement, severity, fear, urgency, abject terror, sadness and reassuring calm. I’m no acting expert but that would seem a rather tall order for such a young child actress; nonetheless she plays the part to perfection. For those not put off by the genre I would say the movie is definitely worth a look (or a second one if you’ve seen it already) but more as a prelude to reading the book in which you get the full story and a much more deep, meaningful, insightful and satisfying one at that. I am, as stated, not a fan of the genre but I have a soft spot for the movie and the book remains one of my favorites. Many years ago when I was in school I had a replica of the emblem of the Empress made and would occasionally get comments (always good ones) from those my age who remembered it from their childhood. I might have to go find it again…

Royal on Film

It may be too little too late but tonight on TCM the 1928 silent film classic "Four Sons" was featured. Devoted movie fans might be aware of the film but they may not be aware (at least I wasn't) that he had an actor in the cast with very prestigious royal connections. Listed as simply playing "a captain" in the Imperial German army was Archduke Leopold Maria Alphons of Austria (Archduke Leopold of Austria on the cast list). He was the son of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria and Infanta Blanca of Spain (daughter of Duke Carlos of Madrid) who was the son of Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria (of the Tuscan branch of the Hapsburg family) and Princess Maria Immaculata of the Two-Sicilies. The sad but touching film tells the story of a German widow and her four sons, one of whom ends up in the US Army in World War I.

Cinematic Royal: Vivien Leigh

“Caesar and Cleopatra” was made in 1945, based on the work of George Bernard Shaw and starring Claude Rains as Caesar and Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra. Shaw was reportedly quite dissatisfied with how Leigh played the part of the Egyptian queen, but I thought it a rather refreshing departure from the usual way it is done in this historic story that has captivated audiences for literally thousands of years. It is not, to be sure, historically accurate and will probably seem dated to most if not all modern audiences but it is still one of my favorites. Though I am a big Claude Rains fan it was Vivien Leigh who stole the show for me and her being positively stunning does not hurt either.

The film is a combination of political drama and odd comedy, often quite funny, and Leigh’s Cleopatra commands most attention simply for being the character that grows and changes in the most dramatic fashion. When Caesar first meets Cleopatra she does not know his identity and he finds her a very superstitious, innocent, naïve, childlike girl, conscious that she is a Queen but quite unfamiliar with power; a “palace kitten”. He takes it upon himself to make a monarch out of her, telling the fearful young Queen that if Caesar detects any hint of weakness he will eat her alive -as it is well known in Egypt that the Romans are barbaric cannibals.

The scenes in the desert palace are undoubtedly my favorite. Caesar sees to it that Cleopatra gets a taste of power and she thrives on it. We see her grasp the position and authority that are hers and we see her grow more scheming, ruthless and mature in wielding it. We also see Caesar realize that rather than simply create a worthy conquest he has created a rival. What is perhaps most odd about this piece is that there really is no romance between the two title characters. Caesar is, perhaps a bit smitten, but never possessive and Cleopatra only has eyes for the absent Marc Antony whom she remembers from childhood.

I was a little skeptical about Rains playing Caesar (no one attempting it ever seems “big” enough for the part to me) but he manages to pull it off. Vivien Leigh is sometimes criticized for this performance but I thought she was superb, convincing in each stage of the evolution of her character but all the while still retaining some of her childlike core all throughout. She is simple and childish, she is frightened, she is shocked to maturity and finally driven and ambitious while all the while looking good enough to make the audience believe she could have brought two Roman conquerors to their knees.

Cinematic Royal: David Niven

It was many years ago that I came across the movie “Bonnie Prince Charlie” starring David Niven in the title role. Unsuspecting innocent that I was, I thought, ‘what a great story for a movie, David Niven is a good actor, oh and look, Jack Hawkins is in it too and he’s been a lot of great movies, this must be a sure winner’. And as I bought it and walked out the store not one clerk was good enough to warn me that I had bought one of the most infamous stinkers in the history of British cinema (which is really saying something). I soon found out that “Bonnie Prince Charlie” is a ponderous, preachy, uneventful film full of actors I could barely understand and with all of the really important stuff happening off-screen. This is a movie about the 1745 uprising that manages to show only about a minute of one actual battle (Prestonpans I think). Even the climactic battle of Culloden is not shown -happens off screen.

Pretty much every character in this movie has no depth to them. Even the really good actors have nothing to work with to make their characters come alive. David Niven is a great actor, I’ve seen him in movies he was superb in, but he is totally miscast here as romantic royal hero. He’s too polite, too soft-spoken and too stiff. More importantly, he smiles too much. Way too much. So, my Dad is sending me to Scotland to launch a rebellion against the House of Hanover -smile. So the King of France didn’t send the troops and all I have is seven grizzled highland chiefs -smile. We’re fighting bloody battles with people being shot, stabbed, bayoneted and cut open with those massive Scottish claymores -smile. I’m on the run for my life with a bunch of bloodthirsty Germans on my trail -smile. It’s too much! Campaigns are being planned, battles fought or at least pondered and matters of life and death are dealt with and all the while Niven’s grinning like an idiot. I don’t know what they were going for but it just looks silly and unrealistic.

Refraining from comments on the overall movie is hard but with Niven’s portrayal of Prince Charles, it is simply impossible to get emotionally involved in his character when all he does is grin and go into the occasional wooden sad mood. It is hard to get emotional about the uprising when we never see battles being fought and it is hard to get too involved in his flight from persecution when we never really see any persecution. There were great cruelties visited on the Scots by the Duke of Cumberland in the aftermath of the ‘45 but all we ever see is occasional Hanoverian rudeness. The movie, is very much, a movie about the idealistic vision of the Bonnie Prince Charlie. Most know he was far from being a saintly, inspirational figure all the time, but even given what the film is and the effort to make the prince as sympathetic as possible the audience simply cannot conjure up much emotion for a character who does not show much emotion himself.

This film was made in the aftermath of World War II and the “bad guys” are pretty much German rather than British, still I doubt many Hanoverian sympathizers will appreciate it. They are portrayed as the enemy and yet are not even given the satisfaction of watching the final Jacobite defeat with the only portion of a battle being shown being, naturally, a Jacobite victory. Die-hard Jacobites may find the film at least tolerable since it is very much from the Stuart point of view but despite the great costumes, stunning locations and so on it is simply a dud of a movie and the portrayal of Prince Charles is so remote and almost other-worldly that one does not feel to have any better understanding of him after watching the movie. Perhaps one day a film will be made that is worthy of the dramatic story of the last Jacobite rising but, unfortunately, this is definitely not it and thankfully the part of Bonnie Prince Charlie will not be the role David Niven is most remembered for.

Cinema Royal: Barry Foster

The late British actor Barry Foster (originally John Barry Foster) appeared in a number of television and film roles but one of his most memorable, certainly for readers here, was his part in the 1974 BBC miniseries “Fall of Eagles”. In seven episodes he played the part of German Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of course the crew did their best to make all the actors resemble their historical characters as much as possible but, in my opinion, none looked so convincing as Barry Foster’s Kaiser Wilhelm. Particularly in the latter episodes where he was aged somewhat the resemblance is striking. Had it been possible to give him a shrunken left arm one could, at times, have trouble telling the actor apart from the actual monarch. His portrayal was also, on the whole, a fairly accurate one. He did not play the Kaiser as a malicious villain, but as a somewhat over-the-top monarch trying to be the sort of strongman he was expected to be, ever confident that his own course was the correct one. As the series went on and especially in the final episode Foster shows very well how the Kaiser had fallen into frustration and melancholy trying to come to grips with being reduced to a figurehead with his empire collapsing around him. Certain scenes also show his religious side which is often ignored. It correctly shows that he was not behind some maniacal scheme to conquer the world, that he had grave misgivings and gave dire warnings about the efforts to encourage revolution in Russia and one of the most touching scenes of the series was certainly when he comforted his weeping wife over the tragic fate of the Romanovs. For the accuracy of the part, sugar-coating nothing but not vilifying the Kaiser, the talent with which he portrays the Kaiser at different stages in his life and for his uncanny resemblance it is Barry Foster as Wilhelm II that most stands out in my mind from “Fall of Eagles”.

Cinema Royal: Genevieve Bujold

French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold starred as Anne Boleyn in the 1969 film "Anne of the Thousand Days". For someone coming from an admittedly partisan point of view, and as someone who views Catherine of Aragon as one of the greatest ladies in all of history, it is hard for me to find a portrayal of Anne Boleyn which I admire. Genevieve Bujold, however, strongly delivers. She certainly has the physical beauty to convince the audience she could motivate a king to tear his country in half to have her, however, in this film Anne Boleyn is portrayed as not really seeking for this to happen. Although she is portrayed as a woman with, I shall politely say romantic experience, she nonetheless wants nothing to do with the King who broke up her engagement and had left her sister abandoned after being his mistress. Rather than stringing the king along to get all the earthly glory she can, in this film Bujold portrays Anne as a woman who resists the king at every turn and hopes that she can put up so many obstacles the king will have to stop pursuing her and allow her to go her own way. Henry VIII, played by Richard Burton, tears down every obstacle though and finally wins her over, though as soon as she submits to love him he has fallen out of love with her and wants her gone whom he had once so desired. The part is played well (she won a Golden Globe for best actress and was nominated for an Oscar for the role) and gives Genevieve Bujold's Anne Boleyn a place amongst my Tudor film favorites.

Cinematic Royal: Jordi Molla as King Philip II

From my own experiences the film “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” has elicited extreme reactions from everyone save the critics, most of whom shrugged it off as blunt and lackluster. Others, however, either adamantly love it or hate it with few feelings in between. For those who love it, the primary motivation is the English triumphalism on display and the very sympathetic portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I, one of, if not the, most celebrated monarchs in English history. However, I want to take a minute to look at the part of the villain of the movie; King Philip II of Spain.

In short, I thought the role was atrocious. Catalan actor Jordi Molla was given the part and played it well (he is a talented actor which few would deny) but the figure on screen had seemingly nothing in common with anything we know about Philip of Spain. The casting of Molla seems an odd choice. I have often heard that, an actor must have sympathy for his character, even if a villain, to play the part well. In this case, based on the interviews he gave, Molla seemed to have nothing but contempt for his character and that seems to show on screen but is also, perhaps, not surprising coming from a liberal actor who does not seem to have much respect or affection for the two things that King Philip loved and respected above all else on earth; namely Spain and the Catholic Church.

Philip II is portrayed as such a one-dimensional character as to be downright cartoonish. Flanked by whiskery monks and constantly clutching a rosary he creeps about his castle alternating between shouts and whispers calling his enemy a “whore”. He shrinks back from sunlight and is ever in the shadows and always dressed in black. Designed to be the picture of a religious radical he is constantly using the words of a crusader but takes his spiritual direction from a candle in his room; if it burns calmly upright God is pleased but if it flickers God is angry. Obviously it would not take an extremely intelligent person to realize that simply shutting the windows would ensure everlasting Godly favor using this method of divination!

Then there is the numerous historical inaccuracies, made, I suppose, to simply add to the villainy of the character, but all quite untrue. Philip was not flooding England with assassins and the whole myth of murdering priests has really become tiresome and should be put to rest. Even when something accurate is shown; such as the extent to which Spain was deforested to build the “Invincible Armada” one wonders whether this was done for the sake of accuracy or simply as another way of vilifying Philip II by portraying him as being an anti-environmentalist! On the whole, even if their aim was to make Philip look as evil as possible they still failed. The portrayal was so simplistic, so one-dimensional that he comes off looking more silly than truly threatening.

The movie was meant to be a glorification of Elizabeth I of England and fair enough. But it should not be necessary to slander the name of Philip of Spain to glorify Elizabeth of England. Consider if the shoe were on the other foot? For Spain, the reign of Philip II was their “Golden Age” to a large extent and at least somewhat today and certainly before the wave of liberalism and secularism crashed in Spain the memory of King Philip II was honored just as much and as fervently by the Spanish as the memory of Elizabeth I is in England.

Cinema Royals: Bette Davis

Bette Davis was at her typical best in the 1939 bio-pic "Juarez" as the tragic Empress Carlota of Mexico. The superb cast included Paul Muni as Benito Juarez, Brian Aherne as Emperor Maximilian (who was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance), the always excellent Claude Rains as Emperor Napoleon III, Gale Sondergaard as Empress Eugenie, John Garfield as General Porfirio Diaz and Donald Crisp as Marshal Achille de Bazaine. However, Bette Davis easily captivated the audience as Empress Carlota, bearing at least a passing resemblance to the Belgian empress and, on the whole, giving a fairly accurate portayal of the woman. She mentions that it was she who pressed Maximilian to accept the Mexican throne and she effectively conveys the idealism that Carlota had for what she and her beloved Max could make of Mexico as well as her fiery determination in times of crisis. In this film Carlota is made ignorant of the fact (though Max and his doctor are not) that she can have no children and one of the most moving scenes is her heartfelt prayer in a candle-lit cave before a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe to give her a son so that her husband's throne might be secure. Her scenes with Maximilian are truly moving and their on-screen relationship totally overshadows the story of the wooden, plodding Benito Juarez. She is heartbroken at the idea of adopting an heir from the Iturbide dynasty but, once persuaded that this is best, accepts the boy as her own. Still, her best scenes are the most tragic as she journeys to France for a showdown with Napoleon who has left them in the lurch. Her descent into paranoia and madness must rank as one of Bette Davis' greatest performances in her illustrious career. "Juarez" is a movie well worth seeing, even if one must skip through the scenes featuring the president, and although not entirely historically accurate it does get many things right. It is guilty more of the over-glorification of Juarez rather than slandering or vilifying Carlota and Maximilian. A great performance and one of my personal favorites.

Cinema Royals: Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave as Mary Queen of Scots in the 1971 film Mary Queen of Scots. Vanessa Redgrave certainly has illustrious Tudor film credentials. Aside from Queen Mary she appeared as Anne Boleyn in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons (which she did voluntarily without salary) and she was Alice More in the made for TV version of the same film alongside Charleton Heston. This film version of the story of the last Catholic Queen of Scots is not the most sympathetic and it forced her to share screen time and story importance with Queen Elizabeth I of England. However, Vanessa Redgrave gives an excellent performance of the Scottish queen as a well meaning woman, a woman of strength and one plagued by misfortune. It is the emphasis of the film though that Mary was more woman than Queen, however, she convincingly portrays Mary as a woman not naive in politics, though certainly so in romance at least concerns Lord Henry Darnley. My favorite scene by far is her triumphal ride into recently conquered Dunbar, riding side saddle, breastplate fastened on, royal banner and crosses of St Andrew fluttering around her and bagpipes skirling. She enjoyed few such happy occasions in her life or in this film.

Cinema Royals: Emilia Fox as Jane Seymour

Today's Cinema Royal is Emilia Fox as Jane Seymour in the 2003 HBO-ITV movie Henry VIII. There should be no doubt that Emilia Fox would be good at her job since this kickboxing London girl has acting in her veins being the daughter of Sir Edward Fox OBE. She was very believable in her part and I think presented an image of Jane Seymour that is not often considered. In this film, Jane Seymour, a devoted wife, is also a faithful woman with strong opinions and firm principles. Emilia manages to strike the right balance I think between pushing for what she believes in and being a good Tudor-era wife, which is what the real Jane Seymour had to do. She comes across as a good, devout woman, a faithful Catholic who wants to see reconciliation in the Tudor family as well as between England and Rome. She brings down the wrath of her husband because she feels so strongly about this and yet Emilia is believable as a wife who cares about the soul of her husband and wants him to see the error of his ways and return to the embrace of the Church. Her best scenes are the pride in her face as Mary is brought back to court and she tells her how the King has changed and has agreed to the restoration of the old Church and when Henry VIII blows up at her for interfering, the second time becoming violent at which point she goes into labor. Her talent definitely shows in those moments. Some have dismissed the idea that Henry ever struck Jane, but I don't think it totally impossible as he had already beheaded his last wife and threatened (though we don't know how seriously) Jane with a similar threat if she continued to try to advise him on political and religious matters. Emilia is a lovely Jane.

Cinema Royals: Fanny Ardant

First, a word of religious warning for readers of the Roman persuasion. The award winning 1998 film "Elizabeth" certainly does not try in the least to be fair toward the Catholic point of view and virtually every Catholic in the movie is portrayed as a horrible villain --but some still play it very well. My absolute favorite character in the movie was Queen Marie d'Guise played by Fanny Ardant, who as this film shows is certainly growing old gracefully. She plays the part to perfection even though it is a part totally out of touch with historical reality. In this movie, Marie d'Guise is essentially a cruel, ambitious and somewhat degenerate French temptress who is killed (off camera) during an illicit liaison with Sir Francis Walsingham. Marie d'Guise (the real one) was nothing like this, in fact, if anything it was she who was the victim of English treachery, and on a superficial note, by the time of the reign of Elizabeth I, Marie d'Guise looked nothing like Fanny Ardant but had by then become a rather large and sickly woman. So, why do I like her? She plays the part very well, and who could resist a French woman of her mature beauty riding on to the battlefield with an armor breastplate over her dress, glorying in her triumph over the English army? Warrior queens are usually sure-winners with me. She completely captured the style the filmmakers were going for as being strong, cunning, attractive and dangerous. The real Marie d'Guise was totally the opposite as far as her morals but she was a strong woman and a gifted ruler, always willing to face the enemy. I'm sure the real Queen would not have appreciated how she was portrayed, though she probably wished she looked as good as Ardant at that stage in her life.

Cinema Royals

JUAREZ (1939) Starring Paul Muni, Bette Davis and Brian Aherne is probably the most well known film on the subject of the French intervention in Mexico, Maximilian and Juarez. It is a classic piece from the Golden Age of Hollywood and much more than simply a biopic of Benito Juarez. Paul Muni is the intended star as Benito Juarez but it is Brian Aherne as Emperor Maximilian who steals the show and has the most screen time. Muni balked at this and had more scenes for himself put in but lingering on his wooden portrayal only serves to slow the film down whenever he appears. Despite bending the truth considerably to portray Juarez in a favorable light Emperor Maximilian still comes off as a sympathetic character. Also on hand are John Garfield as General Porfirio Diaz and Donald Crisp as Marshal Achille de Bazaine. Claude Rains delivers a typically brilliant and villainous portrayal as Emperor Napoleon III. The film leaves no doubt as to who the viewer is supposed to be rooting for with a succession of ham-fisted efforts to portray Juarez as a secular saint but the character is so dull and the story of Maximilian and Carlota (played by Bette Davis) is so much more interesting that the film really revolves around them. Bette Davis also offers up a brilliant portrayal of the doomed empress and her descent into madness must stand out as one of her greatest moments on film ever. Those interested in the period cannot afford to overlook this film no matter which side you are on in the republican-monarchist debate.

Glimpse of Royalty: Prince Albert II

In 1998 then HSH Hereditary Prince Albert of Monaco appeared in a cameo in the film "One Man's Hero" about the career of the San Patricio Battalion; a group of predominately Irish deserters from the US Army who fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Largely considered traitors in the United States the San Patricios are still celebrated heroes in Mexico. They left the US Army largely because of religious persecution and became an artillery battalion in the Mexican army and quickly earned a reputation of an elite unit. Prince Albert played the part of Private James Kelly, probably a reference to the Irish heritage of his late beloved mother Grace Kelly, who had seen previous service in Her Majesty's Royal Artillery. When he informs his commander of this (John Reily played by Tom Berenger) he is complimented on his valuable experience but reminded, in what I am sure was the film crew having a bit of fun with the Monegasque prince, that there are no royals around anymore and that they serve a republic. Listed in the credits as "Albert Grimaldi" the Prince has a double connection with a film like this. Aside from his Irish ancestry through his mother, he also has some Mexican blood in his veins via his grandfather Prince Pierre of Monaco, Duke of Valentinois, whose mother was the Mexican lady Susana Maria de la Torre y Mier.