Anastasia (1956 film)

Though the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his family were executed in July 1918, rumors spread that Nicholas's youngest daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, somehow escaped and survived.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, for whom Anna's character is based on.

During 1928, in Paris, France, an ailing woman named Anna Anderson, who resembles Anastasia, is brought to the attention of a former White Russian, General Sergei Bounine, a proprietor of a successful Russian-themed nightclub. Bounine knows that, while in a mental asylum being treated for amnesia, Anna had told a nun there that she is Anastasia. Terrified after being approached by Bounine and addressed as the Grand Duchess, Anna flees to the River Seine and attempts to throw herself in, though she is stopped.

Bounine then meets with his associates, Boris Andreevich Chernov and Poitr Ivanovich Petrovin; he had already repeatedly raised funds from stockholders, eager to gain a share of £10 million that belonged to Anastasia held by an English bank- based on his claim that he had found her, which Bounine privately admits is a lie. Frustrated by his delays, the stockholders have lost their patience with Bounine and has given him eight days to produce Anastasia.

Bounine arranges for Anna to be intensively trained to pass as Anastasia. During this time, the pair begin to develop feelings for each other. Later, in a series of carefully arranged encounters with former familiars and members of the Imperial court, Anna begins to display a sense of confidence and style that astonish people who doubt her.

Anna and Bounine soon arrive in Copenhagen, Denmark, to convince the skeptical Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, the Grand Duchess's grandmother, of Anna being Anastasia. Meanwhile, Bounine becomes jealous of how much attention Prince Paul von Haraldberg, the Dowager Empress's nephew, pays to Anna, who is able to have a meeting with her. Though Anna is initially dismissed as another imposter, she is able to persuade the Dowager Empress into believing that she is Anastasia.

Later, at a ball in which the Dowager Empress was to present her granddaughter, as well as announce "Anastasia's" and Prince Paul's engagement, the Dowager Empress has a final private conversation with her. Though she is aware of Bounine's intentions, the Dowager Empress tells Anna that she believes that she truly is Anastasia. Upon realizing that Anna and Bounine were in love, the Dowager Empress allows them to run away together. When told that she and Bounine and Anna had left, Paul explains to the others that the young woman wasn't Anastasia after all. But the Dowager Empress responds, "Wasn't she?" and goes to speak to the guests. When asked what she is going to say to them, the Dowager Empress responds, "The play is over. Go home."

L-R: Sacha Pitoëff, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Yul Brynner

• Ingrid Bergman as "Anna Anderson" / Anastasia Nikolaevna
• Yul Brynner as General Sergei Bounine
• Helen Hayes as Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna
• Akim Tamiroff as Boris Andreevich Chernov
• Martita Hunt as Baroness Elena von Livenbaum
• Felix Aylmer as the Chamberlain
• Sacha Pitoëff as Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin
• Ivan Desny as Prince Paul von Haraldberg
• Natalie Schafer as Irina Lissemskaia
• Grégoire Gromoff as Stepan
• Karel Štěpánek as Mikhail Vlados
• Ina De La Haye as Marusia
• Katherine Kath as Maxime
• Peter Sallis as Grischa (uncredited)[3]

The film was adapted by Guy Bolton and Arthur Laurents from the play by Bolton and Marcelle Maurette. Some critics believed the film was bound too much to the static settings and theatrical "scenes" of the play, but additional, essentially decorative, ball scenes were added to open up the action.

The film does not explicitly reveal whether Anna is or isn't Anastasia, but suggests through subtle hints that she is, such as frequently coughing when she was frightened, which the Dowager Empress says that Anastasia did when she was a young girl. The gradual realization that Anna is the Grand Duchess is through Bounine's growing feelings for her.

The film was partially meant to symbolically mark Bergman's comeback to Hollywood after several years of working in Italy with her husband, Roberto Rossellini. Their marriage had caused a scandal, as he divorced his then current wife, Marcella DeMarchis, to be with her.

The film was also a comeback for Helen Hayes. She had suspended her career for several years due to the death of her daughter Mary, and her husband's failing health.

The theme song of the film, also titled "Anastasia," has been recorded by a number of artists. The most popular version was by Pat Boone, reaching number 3 (as a double-A-side with "Don't Forbid Me") on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart for several weeks in early 1957.

• List of American films of 1956
• Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
• Anastasia (1997 film)
• The Story of Anastasia, a German film appearing that same year
• Romanov impostors

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anastasia (1956 film).

• Anastasia at IMDb
• Anastasia at the TCM Movie Database
• Anastasia at AllMovie
• Anastasia at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Anastasia at Rotten Tomatoes