kenjha Bergman bagged her second Oscar as a disturbed woman who may or may not be the only member of the family of Tsar Nicholas II to have survived execution. She's good, not great. The Oscar may have been a reward for her return to Hollywood after seven years of exile. As a brash Russian figure (it's not clear why he has title of General) who goes around barking commands at others, Brynner seems to be doing a variation on his Oscar-winning role in "The King and I" from earlier the same year. Although this film boasts the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscar winners for 1956, the best performance is given by Hayes as a Danish empress. In fact, the film drags until she shows up.

LouE15 Wonderfully charismatic Yul Brynner, and a 'reborn' Ingrid Bergman – making her reappearance in Hollywood after years in exile – star in this slightly odd film, a fantastic reworking of an original true story. Anna Anderson (Bergman), sick, amnesiac and slightly mad, is brought from the brink of self-destruction in 1920s Paris to dubious life by a group of mercenary, cynical exiled White Russians led by General Bounin (Brynner). As they groom her to convince their fellow exiles that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, rumoured to have escaped the firing squad that destroyed the rest of the Tsar's family, Bounin's feelings about his and her 'part' in the 'play' become more complicated. There's an interesting mix of things going on here: great, clever script, strong cast, hot leads, but something doesn't quite gel so that you're left (or at least I was) wanting just a little bit more than you get. I'm used to seeing Yul Brynner generate chemistry with any actress he plays opposite – so I was surprised to hear, and see for myself, that in this film the sparks only fly in the script. But also, the whole, wordy film was shot in a terribly 'British' way (I can get away with saying that!)…the camera is almost always too far away to get that incredible intimacy of shot and reaction-shot which is so much a part of screen chemistry. The great Helen Hayes makes up for it amply as "Grandmamma", the Dowager Empress whose belief in Anna's addresses is crucial to the whole enterprise and whose tired face, and withering one-liners, usually aimed at her marvellous lady-in-waiting, form the chief humour of the piece. But close-ups of Anna and Bounin are as rare in this film as hen's teeth: at crucial charged moments between them (when Anna is petulant, drunk, when he is jealous, letting slip that he has started to care), the camera is on the other side of the room, watching with all the indifference of a translator. Incomprehensible – try Brynner and Deborah Kerr in "The Journey" only three years later for exactly the kind of close-up driven chemistry I mean – and with very different results from the slightly chill effect here. Granted, Brynner's cynical character in "Anastasia" is correctly summed up by Bergman's as "vodka – cold, hard, sharp" – but even a cold, hard, sharp man can fall in love – surely this is precisely the dramatic opportunity that's been thrown away? A typical example: Bounin has whisked Anna off back to their suite, cutting short a romantic encounter with exactly the man Bounine wants her to be with; she drunk on champagne, he impenetrable and just a shade jealous. She calls drunkenly to him from her room and, from a fly on the wall position in the central suite, we see him, slowly, respond to her calls. He doesn't know that she's already fallen asleep: what, then, is he walking towards as he stalks into her bedroom with his catlike, dancer's grace? The sexual charge is lost en route to the distant, static camera: like being in the 'gods' at the theatre, you know that something exciting is going on down there, but you can't make it out.Rant over; the story is intriguing and well-played, despite the real Anna Anderson's claim having been firmly discredited now. Bergman seems quite literally to be acting to save her soul – as indeed she was – begging her passage back to a hypocritical Hollywood, which must have been pretty galling. But I think Bergman is better in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness", and Brynner, under-used here, is better in "Invitation to a Gunfighter" and the excellent "The Journey".

marcslope Not the most accurate rumination on whether or not Anna was really Anastasia, perhaps, but creamy, expensive entertainment, expertly done. Many share in the credit. There's a witty, epigrammatic screenplay by the always reliable Arthur Laurents (love that closing line, and most of Helen Hayes' dialogue) that manages to speculate perceptively on the nature-of-performance theme without beating it into the ground; an evocative Alfred Newman score that surpasses virtually anything else he did at Fox; fine CinemaScope photography that really uses the outer reaches of the screen, though it does dabble in spectacle for spectacle's sake at times; a superb Hayes (she could be theatrically actressy or resort to little-old-lady tricks in other movies, but here she's the real deal); a delightful Martita Hunt; and chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner that suggests all the underlying sexual tension without ever stating it explicitly. Also knock-your-eye-out costume design. In a time of rampant Hollywood bloat and slow-moving epics, this one moves along, without too much pretension. And Anatole Litvak's direction, while no great shakes, is nicely paced.

moonspinner55 Critics were too quick to applaud this musty adaptation of Marcelle Maurette's play starring Ingrid Bergman as a rag-woman picked by crafty businessman Yul Brynner to be groomed into Russian royalty Anastasia, a Duchess long though deceased. Helen Hayes is exceptionally good as the cautious Dowager Maria, whom Ingrid must work hard to convince, however Bergman herself (despite winning a Best Actress Oscar for this 'comeback' performance) is mannered, and she has no on-screen rapport with Brynner whatsoever. As a result, the romantic underpinnings of the story do not come off, and the thin plot keeps going after all its pieces have already come into play. The production is appropriately opulent, but the film isn't especially moving or memorable. ** from ****