SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Kirpianuscus emotion. great actors. tragic love story. and few sketches of political context. nothing more. it is easy to criticize it if you ignores the purpose. and the purpose is simple - to show a beautiful film , soft, pink, full of romanticism, touching like each soap opera, dramatic for wake up noble tears and emotions from the public, generous in recreate the atmosphere. costumes, jewels, the right couple - Deneuve and Shariff, impressive Ava Gardner and right James Mason as imperial couple. short, a tragic fairy tale. and it is strange to expect more. because it is not a documentary. maybe a good opportunity for comparisons ( Ava Garden and Romy Schneider in the skin of Elisabeth). a seductive romantic perspective about the fate of Rudolph of Habsburg.

jc-osms I didn't recognise this film when I saw it on the schedules but with an interest in the true-life story, I decided to watch it. From an era (late 60's, early 70's) when factual historical costume drama was all the rage ("A Man For All Seasons", "Waterloo", "Cromwell", "Nicolas & Alexandra"), "Mayerling" doesn't stray too far from the established template - lavish sets, beautiful costumes, on the plus side, overlong playing time and occasional portentousness and pretentiousness on the debit side.Terence "name above the title" Young, marshals his forces well to create a sumptuous looking film which is unstinting in its recreation of the opulence of the Hapsburg Court (in one scene a palace interior is made into a paddock for horse-riding!) and also makes excellent use of the exteriors, both around the palace and a snow-bedecked countryside around the Mayerling cottage.He does likewise with some heavyweight acting talent and gets excellent performances in support from James Mason as the grizzled Emperor, Ava Gardner as his wife, torn between deference to her husband the emperor and maternal devotion to her son, Genevieve Paige as a lively go-between cousin and ex-lover of Prince Rudolf and James Robertson-Justice who is the very spit of Edward Prince of Wales.In the leads Omar Sharif fails to really convey the passion of his fling with his young Baroness, nor perhaps the final madness which drives him to their destruction but is solid and certainly manly enough in his various official uniforms. Catherine Deneuve after initially offering some pith is reduced to a doe-eyed sacrificial lamb by the tragic conclusion.There are sub-plots involving interior and exterior (to Austria) politics, perhaps played up to further contribute to Rudolf's hopeless frame of mind, as well as passing themes of royal duty, family dynasty and the universal one of stern father and misunderstood son, but in truth these tend to distract from the central theme of the film which should have been the doomed love-affair. The dialogue is over-serious and predictable at times and many scenes are too long (particularly the encounter at the ballet) but this is a tragedy after all which might excuse the funereal pace at times and the grim final scene is unquestionably well executed (no pun intended).The cinematography is excellent throughout, redolent of Lean at his best (there's even a Zhivago-type moment at the train station with Deneuve alighting from her train, her head beautifully framed by a fur hood), but perhaps the whole lacks the cohesiveness, impulse and insight into character that Lean might have delivered had he been at the helm. And beautiful as it is, Khatchaturian's featured music, suffers a little from over-familiarity and to that extent again is inferior to Zhivago which of course had Maurice Jarre's original soundtrack to its credit.In the end, like the tragic Rudolf himself, if you can forgive the glibness, a noble failure of a movie, although one can't help one-self jumping forward in time some 50 years to when a British heir-apparent (Edward VIII,) torn between love and duty was able to safely abdicate a throne and live abroad in luxury with his lover, Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, without the need of a suicide pact...

fimimix "Mayerling" is the technicolor-version of "Marie Antoinette", although the gorgeous gowns worn by the ladies are not nearly as sumptuous. Of course, Empress Therese produced many females to wed-off to all the royal courts of Europe. In fact, Empress Victoria (England) was sent to rule there as a teenager ! I only read one user's mention of Marie Antoinette; the early BW version (starring Norma Shearer) displays the opulence royal families led in their icy palaces.Dirctor Terence Young did a splendid job of getting all the right ingredients together for this love-story (script by Michel Arnold). As several users have pointed-out, history was a minor one: many fictional scenes in here, although they certainly contributed to the drama between Crown-Prince Rudolph (Omar Shariff) and "Maria" (Catherine Deneuve). This story is at the near-end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, after 600 years of ruling.Also as some users pointed-out, royal families (then) had little contact with their children - they were too busy being royal....primping and changing clothes so many times a day. Empress Elizabeth (Ava Gardner) portrayed that role with conviction. She did not like "court" life, and most likely wasn't that familiar with all of "Rudolph's" conspiring to take the throne from his father - Emperor Franz-Jospeh (James Mason). Politics then - even WITHOUT the TV-debates ! - was as notoriously corrupt as it is now. Some users mention the lovers' deaths could just as well have been assassinations. Myself, I thought the lovers had poisoned themselves, so I was shocked at the ending.Many users mentioned how well James Robert Justice played "Edward, Prince of Wales". I thought the role was good, but Justice was much too physically large: "Wales" was well-known to skip off to Russia to visit with Czar Nicholos (they were often thought-of as being brothers), so he could openly cross-dress for the many court celebrations....seldom mentioned....All-in-all, this is a very lush movie. Enjoy it for what you see on the screen. Pomp and circumstance certainly give our imaginations a lot of excitement, and this movie can be enjoyed by all. Bravo !

LHaywood If you want history go and do a degree. This movie is pure romantic escapism. The locations are authentic and magnificent and so are the actors. Catherine Denuve and Omar Shariff are stunning as lovers. The movie sound track is wonderful, particularly 'the Spartagus.'I found it to be definitely a romantic overdose. I first saw it as a teenager on TV and it has stayed with me all those years. It belongs firmly in the Hisotrical drama category. Other similar movies are Anna Karenina, which was a BBC mini-series which screened in 1977; Waterloo Bridge with Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor; Beau Brimmel with Elizabeth Taylor and Stewart Granger; Young Bess with Stewart Granger: Just to name a few.