A Royal Scandal

This should have been an Ernst Lubitsch film: it's a remake of his 1924 movie Forbidden Paradise, and he had just started it when he succumbed to his fifth heart attack. (He still gets nominal producer credit.) Preminger stepped in, fresh from the triumph of Laura, and obviously had little success in getting Tallulah Bankhead to tone down the fruitiness of her performance as Catherine the Great, torn, as usual, between lust and sentimentality. There are hints of what might have been in the performances of Coburn and Price.