One of the best and most sumptuous film biographies of all time.

Norma's zenith and with one exception the end of her reign

Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, Yvelines, France

Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo in Conquest (1937)

Bette Davis and Charles Boyer in All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

James Stewart and Ann Rutherford in Of Human Hearts (1938)

Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931)

Gregory Peck and Greer Garson in The Valley of Decision (1945)

Robert Taylor and Lana Turner in Johnny Eager (1941)

Jeffrey Lynn and Jane Wyman in The Body Disappears (1941)

Ronald Colman and Frances Dee in If I Were King (1938)

Bette Davis and Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage (1934)

Karine Vanasse in Marie-Antoinette (2006)

Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith in The Constant Nymph (1943)

Tyrone Power and Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)

You thought of me as something quite wonderful, didn't you? But instead you found an empty-headed, ill-mannered little fool. You see, monsieur, how sadly I am changed.

Oh no, madame! You've made pleasure a shield against lonliness and slander, but you could never change so deep a heart, so eager to be loved. Everyone, even the highest, has some dream of love in his heart and unless he achieve it he must fill that emptiness with noise, fame, excitement, pleasure.

They're very dull, most of them, and neglected, but you'll always find someone there gazing over the relics of queens who were true lovers. There isn't much to see... a ring, a glove, a fan perhaps, but we preserve them as much as we do our laws and we have much more faith in them.

Do you think one-hundred years hence some Swedish gentleman wandering in Paris might smile over a relic of Marie Antoinette? A miniature perhaps, or a ring? This very ring, for instance.

Its centuries old. It has an inscription on it

Can you see it? Lying on a velvet cushion in its little glass case?

I don't know... you might make a present of it, perhaps, to some man who had loved you and it would be worn on his hand for as long as he lived and buried with him when he died because he loved you reverently and as was fitting from a respectable distance but with all his heart for all this life.

Robert Morley and Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)

Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Gladys George, Anita Louise, Robert Morley, and Joseph Schildkraut in Marie Antoinette (1938)

Mae Busch, Olaf Hytten, Anita Louise, and Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)

Norma Shearer

Tyrone Power

John Barrymore

Claudine West

Donald Ogden Stewart

Ernest Vajda

The tragic life of Marie Antoinette, who became queen of France in her late teens.

W.S. Van Dyke

Julien Duvivier

Marie Antoinette

Norma&apos;s zenith and with one exception the end of her reign

Made directly after Irving Thalberg&apos;s death but arranged by him beforehand this was Norma&apos;s final solo showcase. A mixture of the loss of her behind the scenes champion, poor script judgment and her vanity which caused her to turn down possible career savers Mrs. Miniver and Old Acquaintance lead to her days as a top star coming to an end. She still had a few decent pictures in her future, most notably The Women, but this is the last of her big star vehicles and her final big success as the main star of a film.

But this is certainly a grand way to end her time at the top. Norma does well in the lead her occasional lapses into grandiosity are well suited to a queen and don&apos;t get in the way of her characterization like they often did in several of her other films and her smaller moments are well played. Although this really should have been in color, the sets, wigs and costumes are almost impossibly lavish and are dazzling even in B&amp;W. It&apos;s an enjoyable if questionably accurate historical account of Marie&apos;s rise and fall.

Aside from Shearer Robert Morley gives a gem of a performance as the not terribly bright Louis XVI, never making him seem a simpleton just a gentle man unequal to the role thrust upon him by birth. There are a few other good performances from Gladys George as the cheap but flashily dressed Madame du Barry and Joseph Schildkraut as the queen&apos;s venal cousin. Tyrone Power is impossibly handsome but his part is really window dressing so he doesn&apos;t make much of an impression.

Fine through they all are the film would be nothing without Norma. The title role requires someone whose well seasoned star power couldn&apos;t be overpowered by the sumptuous trappings and this is Norma&apos;s show straight down the line. Perhaps the one she was most suited to it&apos;s certainly one of her strongest performances. The film itself is a trifle overlong but for those who stick with it worthwhile entertainment.

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Made directly after Irving Thalberg's death but arranged by him beforehand this was Norma's final solo showcase. A mixture of the loss of her behind the scenes champion, poor script judgment and her vanity which caused her to turn down possible career savers Mrs. Miniver and Old Acquaintance lead to her days as a top star coming to an end. She still had a few decent pictures in her future, most notably The Women, but this is the last of her big star vehicles and her final big success as the main star of a film.

But this is certainly a grand way to end her time at the top. Norma does well in the lead her occasional lapses into grandiosity are well suited to a queen and don't get in the way of her characterization like they often did in several of her other films and her smaller moments are well played. Although this really should have been in color, the sets, wigs and costumes are almost impossibly lavish and are dazzling even in B&W. It's an enjoyable if questionably accurate historical account of Marie's rise and fall.

Aside from Shearer Robert Morley gives a gem of a performance as the not terribly bright Louis XVI, never making him seem a simpleton just a gentle man unequal to the role thrust upon him by birth. There are a few other good performances from Gladys George as the cheap but flashily dressed Madame du Barry and Joseph Schildkraut as the queen's venal cousin. Tyrone Power is impossibly handsome but his part is really window dressing so he doesn't make much of an impression.

Fine through they all are the film would be nothing without Norma. The title role requires someone whose well seasoned star power couldn't be overpowered by the sumptuous trappings and this is Norma's show straight down the line. Perhaps the one she was most suited to it's certainly one of her strongest performances. The film itself is a trifle overlong but for those who stick with it worthwhile entertainment.

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Marie Antoinette

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