Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin
Encyclopedia
Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress is a 1957 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...

. Third of a trilogy of romantic films about the Austrian Princess Sisi
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...

, it was entered into the 1958 Cannes Film Festival
1958 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Marcel Achard * Tomiko Asabuki *Bernard Buffet *Jean De Baroncelli *Helmut Käutner *Dudley Leslie *Madeleine Robinson *Ladislao Vajda *Charles Vidor...

.

Plot

The Austrian empress enjoys travelling through Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, where she ultimately finds the politically priceless affection of local Count Andrássy
Gyula Andrássy
Gyula Count Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka was a Hungarian statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary and subsequently as Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary...

 too intimate. But this is only temporary relief from the frustrations of court life in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, where dutiful Franz remains chained to his desk and leaves his chillingly strict mother Sophie interfering, even in the upbringing of their daughter, Gisella
Archduchess Gisela of Austria
Gisela Louise Marie, Princess Imperial and Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Hungary and Bohemia, Princess of Bavaria was the second daughter and eldest surviving child of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and Empress Elisabeth...

. When Sissi is diagnosed with possibly fatal tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 and Franz has to allow Sophie to remove their daughter on doctor's warning, Sissi is in danger of losing the will to live while exiled to recovery-inducing climates (Portuguese Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

 and Greek Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

). Then desperately needed psychosomatic therapy appears in the form of her indestructibly positive mother Ludovika. She lovingly nurses both her sickness and her taste for life on idyllic walks. Once again Oberst Böckl, the clumsy body-guard whose doting admiration for the empress borders on the improper, provides a comical note, as each time Sissi moves to a new country he struggles with the local language and falls in love with his private teacher. Finally Sissi is well enough to rejoin her husband on an official visit to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, part of Austria's remaining possessions in Northern Italy, where nationalists prepare the Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 sovereigns a hostile welcome which may even start a violent uprising; but the emotional Italians melt for the ostentatiously loving reunion of Sissi and her little daughter on St Mark's Square
Piazza San Marco
Piazza San Marco , is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as "the Piazza". All other urban spaces in the city are called "campi"...

.

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...

     — Empress Elisabeth of Austria
    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...

    , 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
  • 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...

    , Sissi's father
  • Uta Franz — Princess Helene of Bavaria, called Nené, Sissi's older sister
  • Walter Reyer — Graf Andrássy
    Gyula Andrássy
    Gyula Count Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka was a Hungarian statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary and subsequently as Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary...

  • 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...

     — Oberst 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
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