DbcultAccessing Vault...
6.5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Rasputin and the Empress remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Should you watch Rasputin and the Empress? If you are a fan of old Hollywood lore or have a weird obsession with the Romanovs, probably. If you want a factual history lesson, look elsewhere, because this movie treats facts like suggestions.
It’s a strange beast. The film is mostly famous for being the only time the real-life Barrymore siblings—John, Ethel, and Lionel—all showed up in the same frame. You can practically feel the tension in the room, and not just the dramatic kind.
Lionel Barrymore is doing the heavy lifting here as Rasputin. He’s loud, he’s greasy, and he’s clearly having the time of his life being an absolute creep. Some of his scenes go on for minutes at a time while he just stares people down with those heavy, dark eyes. It’s almost uncomfortable to watch, which is probably exactly what he was going for.
There’s this one sequence in the palace that feels like it has enough velvet and heavy curtains to choke a horse. Everything is so dense and ornate. You get the sense they blew the whole budget on the set dressing and forgot to leave room for a tighter script.
John Barrymore is there too, playing a prince, but he looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. He’s got this bored, distant look in his eyes in almost every wide shot. Maybe he was just tired of the set.
The pacing is… well, it’s not great. It drags in the middle like a wet coat. You catch yourself checking the clock, wondering when the inevitable dramatic climax is going to finally land.
It reminds me a bit of the frantic, messy energy you find in Stout Hearts and Willing Hands, where you can see the effort but the glue just isn't holding it all together. There is a weird, disjointed quality to the way the scenes cut from one to the next.
It isn't a masterpiece. It isn't even a particularly good history movie. But it’s a weird, fascinating relic of a time when the biggest stars in the world could just sort of show up and demand a movie be built around them. 🎭
Sometimes the movie just stops making sense entirely. Characters wander in and out of rooms as if they just got lost on their way to the craft services table. It’s messy. I kind of liked it for that.
IMDb 6.2
1922
Community
Log in to comment.
