Mayerling (1968) - film review

Austria in the 1880s.  The crown prince Rudolph is a constant thorn in the side of his father, the Emperor Franz Joseph.  He allies himself with political agitators in the hope of reforming his country and spends more time with his mistresses than he does with his wife Stephanie.  The Emperor’s patience is exhausted when his son starts to pursue a very public affair with a young noble woman, Maria Vetsera.   Under pressure, Rudolph agrees to spend just one more month with Maria...

This somewhat lacklustre re-make of a classic 1930s French film achieved some success when it was released in 1968, mainly on the strength of its impressive cast list.  Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve both manage to turn in a creditable performance, although their talents are largely wasted on what is really little more than a limp love story dressed up as a serious historical drama.

The film was directed by Terence Young, perhaps best known for his James Bond films (which are considered amongst the best in that series).  Young is a competent director but few of his films show much in the way of artistic merit or imagination.  Mayerling is probably the clearest indication of this.  Visually, the film is quite stunning, offering a convincing recreation of the period in which it is set.  Most of the cast put in some solid performances (James Robertson Justice’s Prince of Wales being particularly memorable), and composer Francis Lai delivers one of his most beautiful scores.  But the film is, overall, strangely empty, lacking passion, humanity and charm.  At over two hours, it is too long to sustain the audience’s interest, and some of the plot (such as Rudolph’s dabbling in politics) appears laboured and almost irrelevant to the film’s narrative thrust.

The film has also been condemned for its lack of historical authenticity.  The real Archduke Rudolph was far from being the romantic hero he is portrayed in this film, although it is true that the circumstances surrounding his death are still shrouded in mystery.  This is film’s least important fault: fictitious or not, the film comes nowhere near to capturing the full dramatic potential of a painfully tragic story.

© James Travers 2003

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