Loves of Casanova
About Loves of Casanova
In Venice in 1760, Giacomo Casanova is pursued by a husband and gets out of the city. The road takes him to Saint Petersburg. There he is pulled into the intrigues around Czar Peter III, with Catherine II at court. Maria, Duchess de Lardi, Thérèse, and the singer Corticelli cross his path before he moves on.
Cast & crew
More about Loves of Casanova
Alexandre Volkoff directed. Norbert Falk, Volkoff, and Ivan Mosjoukine wrote it. Noë Bloch and Gregor Rabinovitch produced. Fédote Bourgasoff, Léonce-Henri Burel, and Nikolai Toporkoff photographed. Boris Bilinsky designed the costumes with Barbara Karinska. Pathé distributed the French release. Many of the company were Russians who had left after the revolution. It opened on December 23, 1927.
Themes
Background
The picture was made in France by a company heavy with Russian exiles. The story is set in the 1760s, in Venice and at the court of Peter III.
Making
Volkoff builds the film as a chain of courts: Venice, then the Russian palace, with Mosjoukine moving through both in the same white costume silhouette.
Look
Léonce-Henri Burel, Fédote Bourgasoff, and Nikolai Toporkoff photographed the Venetian and Petersburg scenes.
Music
The 1929 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer synchronization uses music and effects, including "Until the Moon" by Julian Wright and Horace Shepherd. It has no spoken dialogue.
Preservation
A print survives and circulates on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Mosjoukine plays Casanova. Suzanne Bianchetti plays Catherine II. Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays Peter III. Diana Karenne plays Maria, Duchess de Lardi.
- Jenny Jugo plays Thérèse, Rina De Liguoro plays Corticelli, and Nina Koshetz plays Countess Vorontzoff. Michel Simon plays a henchman. Paul Guidé plays Gregori Orloff.
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer prepared a synchronized version in 1929, with music and effects and no spoken dialogue, issued both on disc and on film.
- The 1929 version uses the song "Until the Moon," words by Julian Wright and music by Horace Shepherd.
- Barbara Karinska, who worked on the costumes with Bilinsky, later won an Academy Award for the costumes of Joan of Arc (1948).
Scenes
- Casanova slips out of Venice with a husband behind him.
- At the Russian court he is drawn into the circle around Peter III and Catherine.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Casanova (1927).webm)