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Forbidden Paradise (1924)
Cast / Credits / Reviews (From the Turner Classic Movies Database)
Star Pola Negri and director Ernst Lubitsch, who created an international sensation
with the German superproduction DuBarry, Woman of Passion, were reunited in the frothy
Hollywood comedy/drama Forbidden Paradise. Negri is cast as Catherine, the Czarina of an
unnamed but very Russian-looking country. Rescued from revolutionaries by dashing Captain
Alexis Czerny (Rod LaRocque), Catherine "repays" the Captain in the boudoir.
Czerny falls madly in love with the Czarina, only to discover that he is the latest in a
long line of royal consorts. Angrily, he joins the rebellion, vowing to topple the
monarchy (but promising that Catherine will remain unharmed). When the revolution fails,
Czerny is sentenced to death, but Catherine rescinds the order and allows him a
happily-ever-after with his true love, lady-in-waiting Anna (Pauline Starke). Adolphe
Menjou, a favorite of Lubitsch's, has all the film's best scenes as a rakish chancellor.
Based on a play by Lajos Biro and Melchoir Lengyel, Forbidden Paradise was remade in
1945
as A Royal Scandal, with Tallulah Bankhead as Catherine; the 1945 film was produced
by
Ernst Lubitsch, who fell ill during shooting and was forced to relinquish the directorial
responsibilities to Otto Preminger. -- Hal Erickson
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