MovieChat Forums > Anastasia (1956) Discussion > How old?.

How old?.

posted 10 years ago by lkpp
4 replies | jump to latest

How old was Anastasia supposed to have been at that time and the dowager empress?. Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes were very good in this film but it bothered me knowing that there`s only 15 years between them in age , so it felt odd them playing a grandmother and grand daughter . Even though Hayes was only 55 at the time this film was made ,she looked a lot older so she was right for that part but Bergman being 40 at that time looks way old to be playing a grand daughter . Bergman winning the Oscar , after watching it I `m a bit mixed about it whether this was a deserving win compared to other nominees performances or whether this was a away of an apology to Bergman ,for the way Hollywood treated her and banned her from the U.S. I know films are different back then than they are now , a lot of Oscar winning performances from the golden era if they were released now , they wouldn`t get nominated at all it probably would be considered mediocre performances . I think I would`ve preferred Kerr over Bergman that year , maybe Kerr not actually singing may have cost her . Shame Kerr never ended up winning an a Oscar and Bergman won 3 , but that`s just how things go.

[–] DryToast 10 years ago

The stage play takes place in 1926, when Anastasia would have been 25 and the Dowager Empress would have been 79. (I don't recall whether the movie is also 1926 or slightly later, but the Dowager Empress died in 1928.)

If it's any help, Anna Anderson was quite sickly and tended to look older than her years. But the story is so fictionalized, it probably shouldn't really matter. Isn't it a bigger problem that Anna Anderson and the Dowager Empress never met?

"You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you."

[–] lkpp 10 years ago

It`s a bit like Mary ,Queen of Scots , I watched the 71 version and in that film Mary Of Scotland and Elizabeth 1 did meet but I think I heard in real life they never met at all. There`s plenty of films that are historically not correct and fictionalized , I think with Anastasia ,it`s one bit of history that no one will ever know the truth whether Anastasia had escaped and survived or not.

[–] DryToast 10 years ago

I see now that the movie changes the play's time and place from 1926 Berlin to 1928 Paris, which would make the Dowager Empress 80, and she died in October of that year, some weeks before her 81st birthday. The real Anastasia would have turned 27 that year, but Franziska Schanzkowska (now generally accepted as the imposter that the play is based on) would have been 31.

in that film Mary Of Scotland and Elizabeth 1 did meet but I think I heard in real life they never met at all.

Yes, but in that film the meet in secret, so we would never have known!

"You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you."

[–] MalContentUSA 9 years ago

As I recall, Prince Bounine mentions the murder of the Tsar and his family as having taken place ten years previously, which would have put "Anna" at about 26 or 27--the real Grand Duchess Anastastia had just turned 17 at her death. And certainly it wouldn't be the first time that Hollywood played fast and loose with the ages of real people, or for that matter not-so-real people--Laurence Olivier, when he made his film of "Hamlet", hired Eileen Herlie, 12 years younger in real life, to play his motherr.