The Scarlet Empress

Dietrich in white rides up the palace stairs at the head of the cavalry, and that is how it ends. Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst is sent to Russia to marry the heir and becomes Catherine the Great by taking the army to bed, in a palace Sternberg fills with Peter Ballbusch's gargoyle saints, two-metre doors, and a wedding shot through candle flame; the torture montage under the opening titles announces the tone. Sam Jaffe is the half-wit Grand Duke Peter, Louise Dresser the Empress Elizabeth, John Lodge the lover. It lost money, and Sternberg said it was the one he made for himself. Paramount, 1934.