Review – Rasputin and the Empress

This picture is better as a historical curiosity than it is as a movie. For starters, the opening credits specifically identify all the characters other than Rasputin and the Romanovs as “fictional.” Prince Felix Youssoupov – one of the actual plotters – successfully sued for libel (in England, so take it for what it’s worth) based not on the movie’s assertion that he was an assassin but the insinuation that he’d used his wife as bait to lure the target to his house. Film history buffs will also treasure this as the only movie to unite Ethyl, Lionel and John Barrymore. Lionel does a predictably over-the-top job as Rasputin, the power-hungry, child-molesting, bug-torturing con man single-handedly responsible for the collapse of Nicholas II’s otherwise benevolent reign (or at least that’s the thesis of this picture). Originally released in Europe as Rasputin the Mad Monk. Mildly amusing