''Mayerling'' is an episode of the American television series ''
Producers' Showcase
''Producers' Showcase'' is an American anthology television series that was telecast live during the 1950s in compatible color by NBC. With top talent, the 90-minute episodes, covering a wide variety of genres, aired under the title every fourth M ...
'' made for
NBC Television
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, which was aired on 4 February 1957 and released theatrically as a film in Europe.
The film was produced and directed by
Anatole Litvak
Anatoly Mikhailovich Litvak (russian: Анатолий Михайлович Литвак; 21 May 1902 – 15 December 1974), better known as Anatole Litvak, was a Ukrainian-born American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in vari ...
, who had previously directed the French film version of ''
Mayerling
Mayerling is a small village (pop. 200) in Lower Austria belonging to the municipality of Alland in the district of Baden. It is situated on the Schwechat river, in the Wienerwald (''Vienna woods''), southwest of Vienna. From 1550, it was in the ...
'' (1936) which was an international hit and brought Litvak to Hollywood. The 1957 version stars
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, t ...
and
Mel Ferrer
Melchor Gastón Ferrer (August 25, 1917 – June 2, 2008) was an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He achieved prominence on Broadway before scoring notable film hits with ''Scaramouche'', ''Lili'' and ''Knights of the Round ...
,
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor, known for his commanding, stage-trained voice. For his lead role in '' Abe Lincoln in Illinois'' (1940), Massey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Amo ...
,
Diana Wynyard
Diana Wynyard, CBE (born Dorothy Isobel Cox; 16 January 1906 – 13 May 1964) was an English stage and film actress.
Life and career
Born in Lewisham, South London, Wynyard began her career on the stage. After performing in Liverpool and Lond ...
,
Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney (23 April 1894 – 10 January 1968) was an English stage and screen actor.
Career
Sydney made his name in 1915 in the London stage hit ''Romance'' by Edward Sheldon, with Broadway star Doris Keane, and he costarred with Keane in ...
,
Judith Evelyn
Judith Evelyn (born Evelyn Morris, March 20, 1909 – May 7, 1967) was an American-Canadian stage and film actress who appeared in around 50 films and television series.
Early years
Evelyn was born Evelyn Morris[Isobel Elsom
Isobel Elsom (born Isabelle Reed; 16 March 1893 – 12 January 1981) was an English film, theatre, and television actress. She was often cast as aristocrats or upper-class women.
Early years
Born in Chesterton, Cambridge, Chesterton, C ...]
,
Lorne Greene
Lorne Hyman Greene (born Lyon Himan Green; 12 February 1915 – 11 September 1987) was a Canadian actor, musician, singer and radio personality. His notable television roles include Ben Cartwright on the Western ''Bonanza'' and Commander Ada ...
,
Nancy Marchand
Nancy Lou Marchand (June 19, 1928 – June 18, 2000) was an American actress. She began her career in theatre in 1951. She was most famous for her television portrayals of Margaret Pynchon on ''Lou Grant'' and Livia Soprano on ''The Sopranos''.
...
,
David Opatoshu
David Opatoshu (born David Opatovsky; January 30, 1918 – April 30, 1996) was an American actor. He is best known for his role in the film ''Exodus'' (1960).
Opatoshu began his acting career in the Yiddish theater. Following his tenure in th ...
,
Suzy Parker
Suzy Parker (born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker; October 28, 1932 – May 3, 2003) was an American model and actress active from 1947 until 1970. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s, when she appeared on the covers of dozens of ma ...
,
Nehemiah Persoff
Nehemiah Persoff (August 2, 1919 – April 5, 2022) was an American character actor and painter. He appeared in more than 200 television series, films, and theatre productions and also performed as a voice artist in a career spanning 55 years, be ...
,
Pippa Scott
Philippa Scott is an American actress who has appeared in film and television since the 1950s.
Personal life
Scott was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of actress Laura Straub and screenwriter Allan Scott; an uncle was th ...
,
Monique van Vooren
Monique van Vooren (March 25, 1927 – January 25, 2020) was a Belgian-American actress and dancer.
Early years
Born in Brussels to George Bronz (or Bronze) and Louise van Vooren, Monique was a champion skater and a beauty queen in Belgium. She ...
, and
Lilia Skala
Lilia Skala (née Sofer; 28 November 1896 – 18 December 1994) was an Austrian-American architect and actress known for her role in the film '' Lilies of the Field'' (1963), for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination ...
.
Synopsis
The story of ''Mayerling'' is based on the historical
Mayerling incident, the tragic love affair between
Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria
en, Rudolph Francis Charles Joseph
, caption = Rudolf in 1887
, spouse =
, issue = Elisabeth Marie, Princess Otto of Windisch-Graetz
, house = Habsburg-Lorraine
, father = Franz Joseph I of Austria
, mother ...
and his mistress,
Baroness Mary Vetsera
Baroness Marie Alexandrine "Mary" von Vetsera (19 March 1871 – 30 January 1889) was an Austrian noblewoman and the mistress of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. Vetsera and the crown prince were found dead at his hunting lodge in Mayerling on 30 ...
, and the mystery surrounding their apparent murder/suicide on January 30, 1889, at the imperial hunting lodge in
Mayerling
Mayerling is a small village (pop. 200) in Lower Austria belonging to the municipality of Alland in the district of Baden. It is situated on the Schwechat river, in the Wienerwald (''Vienna woods''), southwest of Vienna. From 1550, it was in the ...
,
Lower Austria
Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
.
Production
Ferrer and Hepburn were reportedly in negotiation for two and a half years to make the special. It was done live, except for some background footage shot in Vienna.
Reception
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote that "a more pallid or elementary version of ''Mayerling'' would be difficult to imagine." "Hardly worth the trouble" said ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''.
Home media
Mayerling has recently been remastered and released to DVD in Region 1 for the first time ever. The primitive archival film copy has been digitally mastered from the original kinescope negative and released on "Mr. FAT-W Video" silver and blue label by Films Around the World.
This hugely-expensive
live television
Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television over the Internet when content or programming is played continuously (not on demand) ...
production was broadcast just once, on NBC, on February 24, 1957. The program was archivally preserved on
kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940 ...
which is a B&W 16mm film taken from a studio monitor of the broadcast. Although the program cost more than $500,000 — at a time when the per capita income of Americans was about $2,000 — the kinescope budget was a paltry $1,500. Clearly, it was not thought that the production had a future beyond the single live network broadcast; only a few prints were made, which were loaned, not given, to a few people involved with the production.
Kinescopes have such poor quality that for many years they were thought to be unusable for modern video and television. However, advances in digital technology have made it possible to master ''Mayerling'' from the original kinescope negative and print materials in high definition, which mysteriously brings out more details than could be seen with the naked eye watching the television broadcast.
The master was then upgraded using the latest digital programming — the grainy appearance was softened, blurred edges are put back in focus, brightness/darkness was adjusted, hand-editing replaced numerous frames with a flash of light with a duplicate frame preceding the bad frame, sound was upgraded to remove most static/pops/hisses, and so on. The finished HD master was then edited to make versions with and without commercials available, and then "stepped down" to standard definition for video; the four acts were digitally marked so that a "skip ahead" goes from act to act.
Finally, permission for the video release was obtained from Sean Ferrer, Luca Dotti, and Mel Ferrer's widow. The film is now available on Region 2 DVD.
IMDB entry
/ref>
See also
* Mayerling Incident
* ''Mayerling
Mayerling is a small village (pop. 200) in Lower Austria belonging to the municipality of Alland in the district of Baden. It is situated on the Schwechat river, in the Wienerwald (''Vienna woods''), southwest of Vienna. From 1550, it was in the ...
'' (1968 feature film)
References
External links
*
Films Around the World entry
{{Anatole Litvak
1957 films
1957 television films
1957 drama films
Biographical films about Austrian royalty
Films set in 1889
Films set in Vienna
Films set in Austria
Films directed by Anatole Litvak
Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria
Films set in Austria-Hungary
1950s English-language films
American drama television films
1950s American films