The Scarlet Empress

Credits and opening from Josef von Sternberg's 1934 Marlene Dietrich vehicle The Scarlet Empress, with Dietrich's daughter, Maria Sieber (billed as Maria Riva) as the young Catherine the Great, C. Aubrey Smith and Olive Tell her Prussian parents, Jane Darwell and Clyde David as servants.

Ever outlandish from director Josef von Sternberg, Princes Sophia (Marlene Dietrich), the future Catherine The Great, kicked out of a royal business conference, bumps into her lustful protector Count Alexei (John Lodge) in a barn, in The Scarlet Empress, 1934.

Director Josef von Sternberg consumes expensive sets and costumes as Marlene Dietrich (as Princess Sophia, who will become Catherine The Great) joins her Prussian father (C. Aubrey Smith) and his court meeting John Lodge as the commanding Count Alexei, emissary of her Russian fiancè, The Scarlet Empress, 1934.

Following another grandiose montage depicting director Josef von Sternberg’s imperial Russia, Marlene Dietrich as German Princess Sophia who will become Catherine the Great, arrives Moscow, met by current Empress Elizabeth (Louise Dresser) escorted by Alexei (John Lodge) and her mother (Olive Tell), and finally meeting her betrothed, the daffy Grand Duke Peter, Sam Jaffe, in Paramount’s The Scarlet Empress, 1934.

Medieval imaginings of Russia from director Josef von Sternberg, in the mind of young Princess Sophia, who will appear on a giant flowery swing as grown-up Marlene Dietrich, the title character, who will become Catherine The Great, summoned by her parents (C. Aubrey Smith, Olive Tell) in The Scarlet Empress, 1934.