"Marie Antoinette," a gargantuan spectacle that seems to have been made primarily to glorify Norma Shearer as only MGM could, is most bearable when various supporting players assume front and center positions amidst the sprawl. The best of them are Gladys George (despite given little to do as Madame DuBarry), the decadently cosmeticized Joseph Schildkraut as the Duc d'Orleans, Robert Morley as the hapless Louis XVI, a rather wan John Barrymore as Louis XV, and tiny but effective bits by Mae Busch and Rafaela Ottiano (both uncredited). A boyish Tyrone Power as Swedish Axel de Fersen enters the story at several intervals, providing Shearer with moments of romance, which are absent from her interactions with her character's on-screen husband, Robert Morley. Anita Louise as the Princesse de Lamballe, the Queen's loyal court ally, is well-suited her role. Cecil Beaton and Henry Grace outdo themselves in set décor, as does Adrian with Shearer's room-filling gowns, all of which is a good thing helping to disguise the lumbering, awkward script concocted by a raft of screenwriters, probably all working against each other, leading to the well-known tragic ending. The music score by Herbert Stothart is functional but unoriginal and uninspired, most disappointingly so during the entr'acte and exit sequences. Shearer displays all of her familiar mannerisms and tics for the first two-thirds of the proceedings, but at least she looks gorgeous while doing so. When things get rough for the character toward the end, she shines most brightly as an actress and delivers some truly moving moments. Her plain look in the prison scenes near the end (in which she resembles Cynthia Nixon without makeup) was not unprecedented for her; she appeared similarly unadorned in parts of MGM's "Let Us Be Gay" (1930).
Review of Marie Antoinette
