ANASTASIA

Firstly, a bit of historical context:  Anastasia was one of the Russian Tsar's family executed in 1918, but for some reason rumours persisted that she had somehow escaped death, leading to various women popping up in the 1920s claiming to be her.

In this film the title character Anna is suffering from amnesia and believes she might be Anastasia.  Of course she could be a con artist but given that she is played by Ingrid Bergman and this being 1956 we can rule out that possibility (sadly). 

She is discovered in Paris in 1928 by a cynical Russian general, Bounine, who has been receiving money from the exiled Russian émigré community to aid him in a search for Anastasia.  He has no interest in finding the real Anastasia (even were she to exist) but is hoping to find someone who he can pass off as her because she would inherit a fortune, although quite how he would get his hands on that fortune wasn't clear to me.  

Anna is the most promising candidate he has come across and Bounine sets about preparing her for meeting the members of the Russian aristocracy and assorted hangers-on he and she will need to convince.  

This is an intriguing setup with potential echoes of the relationship between Higgins and Eliza in 'My Fair Lady', and we can be pretty sure a romance will develop.

Bergman is not my favourite actress of this period but with the right material and the right co-star she can be spectacularly good e.g. 'Casablanca' or 'Notorious'.  Unfortunately here neither the screenplay nor the leading man is good enough.  Playing Bounine is Yul Brynner, at this time the hottest thing in Hollywood following the success of 'The King And I', but a limited actor even if it is not his fault that Bounine is not fleshed out to any depth.

The screenplay is an adaptation of a play, which clearly comprises two Acts, the first in Paris, the second in Copenhagen.  The first culminates with Anna/Anastasia being introduced to the local Russians in a scene which ends surprisingly limply.  

Things pick up a bit in Copenhagen where resides the Dowager Empress (i.e. Anastasia's grandmother) played by the wonderful Helen Hayes.  The best scene in the film by some distance is their first meeting, which ends on an emotional high when the Empress ends up believing Anna really is her granddaughter and embracing her.   

Anna is overjoyed because she is desperate to have an identity and a sense of belonging, which she now has, as well as a fortune to inherit, and a Prince who wants to marry her.

The only fly in the ointment is that Bounine isn't happy at Anna's prospective engagement to the Prince.  The most plausible explanation is that he wants to get his hands on her fortune but the film wants us to believe that he has feelings for her, and likewise she for him, even though we've seen no signs of these feelings developing.  

It doesn't help that throughout the film the director Anatole Litvak is unable to lift the material so it all feels flat and pedestrian.  

Anyway having sat through this tepid drama I was hoping for a rousing and romantic conclusion.  But no, instead we get the oddest ending imaginable, in which Anna and Bounine simply disappear.  It's as though the playwright could see no way to end this farrago satisfactorily and so shrugged his shoulders and gave up.  

I guess we are supposed to believe that (away from the camera!) they declared their love to each other, but why they should leave the scene altogether makes no sense at all.

If I had paid good money to see this back in 1956 I would have left the cinema bemused and disgruntled but it met with generally positive reviews, and Bergman got an undeserved Oscar.

This was her comeback film after a period in the wilderness following her scandalous relationship with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, so maybe the critics and the Hollywood establishment were just pleased to see her back.

Besides the odd ending I was also puzzled by Anna's persistent cough throughout the film.  This would normally indicate a serious, perhaps terminal, illness but here it leads nowhere.  Strange.