The Crown Prince

The Crown Prince

I think I would like to watch this movie again after watching the Sissi trilogy, but mostly for the Sissi parts.

It is about her idealistic only son, Rudolf, the Crown Prince of Austria.

The movie didn't captivate me, because Rudolf himself wasn't my cup of tea.  His philandering really made him seem sleazy, and (big spoiler alert) the main female character, Mary Vetsera, who he commits suicide with at the end (not really a spoiler, I guess, as the Mayerling Incident was a famous happenstance, but I'd never heard of it), seems kind of pathetic.

Mary Vetsera.

Mary moons after Rudolf throughout her childhood and pursues an affair with him and then a murder suicide pact without ever giving any of this much thought -she has no political aims, he can't marry her, she can't really be in love with him as she'd only exchanged a couple polite sentences with him.  The best I can figure, she was just a star-struck 17 year old fan-girl.  She keeps the ticket from the event where they met in a locked box along with the flower he gave her pressed like a modern young girl might keep a souvenir from a Justin Beiber concert.




Their "love story" is really not romantic considering Rudolf still frequents a whore house, used to sleep with Mary's mother and even gives Mary as a gift a mirror her mom had given him when they were lovers without telling her where he got it (twisted), still pines after a peasant girl he loved who died, and has a wife he is trying to divorce because she can't have more children (his conscience doesn't seem bothered by the fact that she can't have more children because he gave her syphilis).  Not to mention, he retains a long-time mistress named Mitzi, who is actually far more interesting than Mary.  In fact, he actually asks Mitzi to participate in the murder suicide pact before Mary -Mary wasn't even his first pick!  But Mitzi had the common sense to say no and try to warn the police of what he was planning.

With Mitzi.

I'm not entirely sure based on the movie exactly why he wanted to commit suicide, except that he didn't want to wait his turn to be emperor, thought his dad's ideas were old hat, and had gotten into a bit of a morphine habit.  The worst of it is that he dragged that poor girl into the whole thing.  He makes a couple of half-hearted efforts to spare her, but in the end he shoots a 17 year old girl.

The real Mary Vetsera and Crown Prince Rudolf.

Sissi and Franz Joseph.

The Sissi depiction is much different than in the Sissi trilogy.  Of course, this movie takes place probably 25 years later, but Sissi is portrayed as showing a bit of her mother-in-law's controlling and nasty habits, especially in her behavior towards her own daughter-in-law.  Her marriage to the Emperor is estranged, and sometimes openly hostile, with implications that she is having an affair.  Again, I think I should watch it once more and maybe just fast forward to watch the bits with her in it.