The Scarlet Empress

Abstract

The Scarlet Empress (1934) redeploys costume drama as farce and as a critique of despotism. The chapter analyzes how Marlene Dietrich does not so much play the role of Catherine the Great as replace the historical figure with her own Hollywood star persona. The power structures of despotism and the lawlessness of the sovereign are thereby parodied: promiscuity becomes the bond Dietrich’s Catherine has with her subjects and the studio-enhanced beauty of her appearance is substituted for the separateness of the royal person. With its spectacular yet rickety film sets, The Scarlet Empress is not an apologist’s chocolate-box rendition of European monarchical government but instead conveys its émigré makers’ sense of its pomposity. Rather than exposing what lies behind the spectacle of power, the film considers what becomes of power when it is nothing but spectacle and appearance.