Sissi is a 1955 film directed by Ernst Marischka

Ernst Marischka

Ernst Marischka was an Austrian screenwriter and film director. He wrote for 93 films between 1913 and 1962. He also directed 29 films between 1915 and 1962...

 and starring Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.-Early life:Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian...

, Karlheinz Böhm

Karlheinz Böhm

Karlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...

, Magda Schneider

Magda Schneider

Magda Schneider was a German actress and singer; she was the mother of the actress Romy Schneider.- Biography :Magdalena Schneider was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. After training as a stenographer, she studied singing at the Augsburg Academy and ballet at the local theater. She made her stage debut...

, Uta Franz, Gustav Knuth

Gustav Knuth

Gustav Knuth was a German film actor. He appeared in 128 films between 1935 and 1982.-Selected filmography:* Friedemann Bach * Das Grosse Spiel * Die Mücke * Sissi...

, Vilma Degischer and Josef Meinrad

Josef Meinrad

Josef Meinrad was an Austrian actor.Josef Meinrad was born Josef Moučka in Vienna, as the fourth and youngest child of the tramdriver Franz Moučka and his second wife Katharina. For his secondary education, he received a scholarship in a school run by Redemptorists in Katzelsdorf near Wiener...

. It is the first of a trilogy of romantic films about the Empress of Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, Elisabeth of Bavaria

Elisabeth of Bavaria

Elisabeth of Austria was the spouse of Franz Joseph I, and therefore both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She also held the titles of Queen of Bohemia and Croatia, among others...

, who was known to her family as "Sisi" (but never "Sissi" as spelled in the title of the film). The film is based on the play Sissys Brautfahrt by Ernst Décsey

Ernst Décsey

Professor Dr. Ernst Décsey, born Ernst Deutsch , was an Austrian author and music critic.Décsey was born in Hamburg and studied law at the Vienna University...

 and Gustav Holm

Robert Weil (writer)

Robert Weil was a writer for stage and screen. Under the pseudonym "Gustav Holm", he co-authored a play Sissys Brautfahrt which was later used for the libretto of the well-known operetta Sissi by Ernst and Hubert Marischka...

.

Starring

• Romy Schneider
  Romy Schneider
  Romy Schneider was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.-Early life:Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian...
  
   — Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria
  Elisabeth of Bavaria
  Elisabeth of Austria was the spouse of Franz Joseph I, and therefore both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She also held the titles of Queen of Bohemia and Croatia, among others...
  
  , later Empress Elisabeth of Austria, called Sissi
• Karlheinz Böhm
  Karlheinz Böhm
  Karlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...
  
   — Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria
  Franz Joseph I of Austria
  Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
  
  
• Magda Schneider
  Magda Schneider
  Magda Schneider was a German actress and singer; she was the mother of the actress Romy Schneider.- Biography :Magdalena Schneider was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. After training as a stenographer, she studied singing at the Augsburg Academy and ballet at the local theater. She made her stage debut...
  
   — Duchess Ludovika of Bavaria, Sissi's mother
• Uta Franz — Princess Helene of Bavaria, called Nené, Sissi's older sister
• Gustav Knuth
  Gustav Knuth
  Gustav Knuth was a German film actor. He appeared in 128 films between 1935 and 1982.-Selected filmography:* Friedemann Bach * Das Grosse Spiel * Die Mücke * Sissi...
  
   — Duke Max of Bavaria
  Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria
  Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria , known informally as Max in Bayern, was a member of a junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach and a promoter of Bavarian folk-music...
  
  , father of Nené and Sissi
• Vilma Degischer — Archduchess Sophie
  Princess Sophie of Bavaria
  Sophie Friederike Dorothee Wilhelmine, Princess of Bavaria was born to King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Karoline of Baden. She was the identical twin sister of Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony as wife of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony...
  
  , Franz Joseph's mother
• Josef Meinrad
  Josef Meinrad
  Josef Meinrad was an Austrian actor.Josef Meinrad was born Josef Moučka in Vienna, as the fourth and youngest child of the tramdriver Franz Moučka and his second wife Katharina. For his secondary education, he received a scholarship in a school run by Redemptorists in Katzelsdorf near Wiener...
  
   — Gendarmerie-Major Böckl
• Erich Nikowitz — Archduke Franz Karl
  Archduke Franz Karl of Austria
  Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria from the House of Habsburg was father of two emperors as well as the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I, and the greatgrandfather of the last Habsburg...
  
  , Franz Joseph's father

Later films

In 1962, a condensed version of the trilogy was released in English under the title "Forever My Love".

Schneider reprised the role of Elisabeth in Visconti

Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...

's 1972 film Ludwig

Ludwig (film)

Ludwig is a 1972 film directed by Italian director Luchino Visconti about the life and death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Visconti's muse, Helmut Berger, stars as Ludwig, while Romy Schneider reprises her role as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in a very different portrayal compared to her role in...

.

The 2007 animated film Lissi

Lissi und der wilde Kaiser

Lissi und der wilde Kaiser is a German animated film released in 2007. It is a comedy parody of the Sissi films.The plot concerns a yeti who makes a pact with the devil to kidnap the most beautiful girl in the world...

is a parody of Sissi.