Rasputin and the Empress

Well, instead of reviewing a Dogma film I'll stick to lambasting an atrocious piece of drek. Rasputin and the Empress (1932) is a rather infamous film for two main reasons: the presence of all three Barrymore siblings - Ethel, John and Lionel - in one film together, and the fact that a lawsuit pertaining to this film created the disclaimer about "The characters in this film are fictitious" etc. But how's the film itself?

Well, it's fucking awful, that's how. As a kid I devoured Michael Sauter's The Worst Movies of All Time book again and again, reading it whenever I was bored, and this was one of the entries. I finally got to see it last night, and aside from one scene of delightful camp it's just a dreadful, dull bore.

Plot: See Nicholas and Alexandra, substitute the Barrymores and Ralph Morgan for the listed actors.

How in the hell can you make the story of the Russian Revolution and the Mad Monk Rasputin boring? Well, I'm still not sure of the answer to that, but director Richard Boleslawski and screenwriter Charles MacArthur (yes, the author of Gunga Din and The Front Page) somehow manage to do it. This is easily the worst attempt at an historical epic I've seen; dreary, talky, overly literal, snail's-paced, and beyond boring, with actors ranging from hysterically hammy to just plain dull (Ralph Morgan as the Tsar in particular). The movie makes Rasputin into a gibbering, demonic madman, a Svengali who literally hypnotizes all of Russia into doing his bidding. The implied romance between him and the Empress takes on a bizarre tint due to the brother-and-sister casting. The final scenes of the Tsar's execution are ridiculously rushed and its impossible to care what happens.

The film doesn't even have the usual "it looks good" defense to fall back on. Boleslawski's direction is adequate, there are a few interesting images (like the ant-fly fight Rasputin forces the Tsarevich to watch) and some nice set design, but this is small consolation for the awful script and performances. Even the most vapid of epics usually have spectacle to commend them if nothing else, but this film hasn't any aside from liberally-borrowed stock footage. In short, it's a complete dud.

The three Barrymores - none of them exactly masters of subtlety, even in their best work - spend the film trying their damndest to outham each other, and the effects are mind-boggling. Ethel Barrymore manages to escape with most her dignity intact: aside from a number of overly theatrical glances and gestures, she doesn't make a complete ass of herself. But her brothers! Lionel Barrymore as Rasputin is beyond hysterical, stroking his beard, bugging out his eyes, lowering his voice to a sinister rasp, cackling madly, fondling one of the Tsar's daughters - he's so cartoonishly evil that Snidley Whiplash would roll his eyes. John Barrymore spends most of the film imitating a wooden plank, until his final confrontation with the Mad Monk - and this is where the film approaches the level of camp classic, however briefly.

In a ridiculously drawn-out, feverishly ridiculous scene - think Torn Curtain's murder scene enacted by The Three Stooges - Rasputin rants and raves, holding his tormentor at gunpoint while he consumes a poisoned cake, until the Prince starts cackling insanely at Rasputin's plight. Then they wrestle around the basement, going out of their way to destroy the entire set, before John beats the crap out of Lionel with a poker, bugs his eyes out, bellows and rages, before dragging his brother outside and drowning him an ice-flow. There's more ham here than at Hormel's Christmas banquet, without the canned pig brains, and it makes for truly hilarious viewing.

I guess what I'm saying is that Rasputin and the Empress is fucking awful. Hell, I'd even argue its camp value is pretty much minimal; it's almost Trial of Billy Jack-level boring, the campy bits only accentuating the awfulness. If a movie can't even be entertaining on a so-bad-it's-good level, the only solution is to stay the hell away.