The Heart of the Queen (digital quality)

Zarah Leander is at her best! Coming as it does from Tempelhof Studios, this film by Carl Froelich boasts superlative art direction, production design, cinematography and score. The film takes creative liberties with historical facts to emphasize this narrative. There is also a splendid cameo by Erich Ponto as a nomadic actor who assumes the function of a prophet of doom.

The allies (so-called liberal democracies, “freedom of speech etc.”) kept it off the screen until the early fifties. Though the USSR under Stalin edited, dubbed and released it in the soviet movie theaters.

To compare in contrast, watch a cartoonish 1936 Hollywood version “Mary of Scotland” directed by the “great” American director John Ford and Katharine Hepburn as Queen Mary. Watch the scene between 45th and 48th minutes with Queen Mary (Katharine Hepburn) and Lord Bothwell (Fredrick March). Amateur or borderline ridiculous acting (high school drama class at best) and a primitive dialog (“When my girl won’t see me, I am a storm.”) that reminds the arguments between the working poor (supermarket saleswoman and her plumber husband).