Barrymuch, Barrymore, Barrymost: Lionel Barrymore, obsessively: The fifteenth of Lionel: Roarin' Rasputin, 1932

One of very favorite guilty pleasures is watching the 3 Great Barrymores tear their way through 1932's Rasputin and the Empress (released Dec 23, 1932), Lionel in particular. It's an over the top spectacle of historical dubiousness that is still, even in the post-libel lawsuit form, highly entertaining. TCM's Spotlight on the film helps explain the huge event the film was:

"MGM production chief Irving G. Thalberg thought he had hit pay dirt. Not only did he have a hot story from recent history - the mad monk Rasputin's rise to power in imperial Russia until he was taken down by a noble-minded assassin. He also had signed the most famous family in acting history - John, Ethel and Lionel Barrymore - to make their first appearance together in a talking film. It seemed like the perfect project for MGM, Hollywood's house of stars, but in the end the film became an unending headache. There were so many problems during production that studio wags nicknamed Rasputin and the Empress - "Disputin'" - and before the picture could show a profit, a series of lawsuits took it out of circulation for decades.

The Barrymores themselves weren't all that impressed with the idea. John, whose looks and memory were fading from the effects of too much drinking, only really cared about the money, though he was intrigued about entering another upstaging contest with brother Lionel after their work together on Grand Hotel (1932). Ethel openly disdained the movies. She only took the job because she had lost most of her money in the stock market crash and was currently touring vaudeville. And at 53, she was terrified of what the cameras would do to her once legendary beauty. The only sibling to enter into the project with any real glee was Lionel, who was willing to spend two hours each morning and evening to physically transform himself into the mad Russian monk."

Ethel was also quite capable of roaring her lines in her stage-voice. Her brothers helped her out, especially Lionel: "In the midst of this furor, Ethel had to learn how to act for talking films. After one scene in which she moaned, flailed about and pulled on the curtains on the set, John asked her, "What the hell are you doing?" "I haven't the faintest idea," she replied. Finally, Lionel gave her some advice that worked. He told her to whisper so that her stage-trained voice wouldn't overpower the sensitive microphones. She whispered so effectively that most critics praised her for her subtle underplaying and the sense that there was always something she wasn't saying." Lionel pointed out to her the mike would be JUST above her head.

That libel suit was what led to each Hollywood film having the admonition "Any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental" or variation thereof. Ethel had known the czar and his family, and had apparently warned the producers they were playing with fire because,

"To motivate Rasputin's murder, MacArthur had included a scene in which Rasputin rapes the wife of his intended victim. Ethel and Mercedes d'Acosta, a Russian emigre hired to do research for the film, both protested that this was a libelous fabrication. The studio's only response was to change the couple's name from Youssoupoff to Chegodieff. But all that did was double the risk of legal action. The film opened to strong reviews and box-office receipts, only to be hit by libel suits from Prince Youssoupoff, his wife and Prince Chegodieff. Ultimately, settling the suits cost MGM over $1 million, almost matching the picture's production cost. To avoid further suits, they withdrew Rasputin and the Empress from distribution for decades."

Now, one also has to bear in mind poor Charles MacArthur was writing as they went--Ethel bullied him into writing the film by going to his and Helen Hayes' house and threatening to wreck it unless he did so. Mr. B writes of hating to see him coming, more rewrites on the way, and while all were pretty fast studies, not having a complete script was really bothering Ethel, who was really just off the stage then. But as John, Lionel, and Ethel all reported, any news of them fighting with each other was nonsense--all were too professional for that, as Lionel wrote,

"...the delusion, the feeble-brained nonsense that Ethel, Jack and I would be so unprofessional, so peacock-proud and petty that we would actually imperil our own picture, is on the level with--to make it ridiculous but no less accurate--the proposition that three trick bicycle riders would kick each other's spokes out fifty feet above the center ring.... Katzenjammeries and japeries, perhaps yes, for the hell of it during some of those...moments which seem to beset all performers and/or artists, but never anarchy. We were happy, as happy as any Barrymores can be under the impress of gainful toil. We did not throw things. We did not set fire to the stages. We did not quarrel" (We Barrymores 11).

There is certainly family resemblance here!

Here are some of many pics I have of the film and various ads. Enjoy, and yep, indulge the film and Lionel's brilliant performance with tongue in cheek. Ethel paid him a perfect comment when she finally saw the film in the 1950s on television: "After finally watching it, she called her friend George Cukor to tell him she was surprised at how much she liked it, then added, in reference to her brother's scene-stealing antics, "My, my! Wasn't Lionel naughty?"