Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
| Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna | |
|---|---|
DVD release cover
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| Written by | James Goldman |
| Directed by | Marvin J. Chomsky |
| Creative director(s) | Marvin J. Chomsky |
| Starring |
Amy Irving Olivia de Havilland Rex Harrison Jan Niklas Omar Sharif |
| Composer(s) | Laurence Rosenthal |
| Country of origin | United States Austria Italy |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 2 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Lance H. Robbins Cheryl Saban |
| Cinematography | Thomas L. Callaway |
| Running time | 195 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Telecom Entertainment Inc. Consolidated Entertainment Reteitalia |
| Distributor |
NBC (1986) Sonar Entertainment (World-Wide) Bridge Entertainment Group (2006) (Netherlands) Dutch FilmWorks (Netherlands) Mill Creek Entertainment (USA, 2011) e-m-s the DVD-Company (Germany) |
| Release | |
| Original release |
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Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (Also titled Anastasia: The Story of Anna) is a 1986 television film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, starring Amy Irving, Rex Harrison (in his last performance), Olivia de Havilland, Omar Sharif, Christian Bale (in his first film) and Jan Niklas. The film was loosely based on the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and the book The Riddle of Anna Anderson by Peter Kurth. It was originally broadcast in two parts.
The film starts Part 1 in December, 1916, at a lavish ballroom gathering just before the Russian Revolution, then moves to 1917's February Revolution, the family's forced move to Siberia in summer, 1917 after Nicholas II's forced abdication in March, the late-1917 October Revolution Communist takeover and start of the Russian Civil War and the July 1918 mass shooting of the Romanov family. Afterwards, it revolves around Anna Anderson, who believes that she is Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Nicholas II of Russia. Anna first tells her story in the 1920s when she is an inmate in a Berlin asylum after her suicide attempt. Her story of escaping from the Bolsheviks who killed the rest of her family in 1918 seems so vivid that many Russian expatriates are willing to believe her. She slowly gains more trust, but the Romanov family exiles in Europe are very hesitant to believe her tale. In Part 2, she travels to the United States branches of the family in 1928, while Nicholas' mother, Maria Feodorovna, dies, but America's Romanovs also eventually publicly denounce her as an impostor in 1931, causing her to leave the U.S. The movie culminates in 1938 with Anna deciding to sue the remaining Romanovs in Germany's courts to force them to recognize her as Anastasia, but it never reveals if Anna really is Anastasia. The ending epilogue narration says that she eventually moved back to the U.S. and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia where she died in 1984.
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