Anastasia

Though the last Russian Tsar and his family were executed in 1918, rumors persisted that his youngest daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, somehow survived. In 1928 Paris, Anna Koreff, an ailing woman resembling Anastasia, is brought to the attention of former White Russian General Bounine, now the proprietor of a successful nightclub. Bounine knows that while Anna was in a mental asylum being treated for amnesia, she told a nun that she was Anastasia. When approached by Bounine and addressed as the grand duchess, she refuses to have anything to do with him. She flees and tries to throw herself into the River Seine, but is stopped. Bounine meets with his associates Chernov and Petrovin. Bounine has already repeatedly raised funds from stockholders (eager to gain a share of £10 million belonging to Czar Nicholas held by a British bank) based on his claim that he had found Anastasia. Privately he admits it is a scam. But the stockholders have lost patience and given him eight days to produce her. Bounine arranges to coach Anna to pass as Anastasia. During this time, she and Bounine begin to develop feelings for one another. Later, in a series of carefully arranged encounters with former familiars and members of the imperial court, Anna begins to display confidence and style that astonish many skeptical interlocutors. While a few accept Anna as Anastasia, no relative with any credibility will endorse her. With time running out, Bounine takes Anna to Copenhagen to convince the highly skeptical Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Anastasia's grandmother. Meanwhile, Bounine becomes increasingly jealous of the attentions that Prince Paul (another fortune hunter) pays to Anna. The Empress initially refuses to receive Anna; however, after seeing her at a Tchaikovsky ballet, the resemblance to Anastasia piques her curiosity. Unannounced, the Empress visits; at first she declares Anna a well-trained actress, skilled in melodrama. She is unmoved by details generally known to courtiers. When Anna refers to her nickname as "Malenkaya" (Little) and then begins to cough, declaring that she always coughs when she is frightened, the empress becomes convinced that Anna is her granddaughter, stating, “You have come back, Anastasia!… but, oh please, if it should not be you, don’t ever tell me.” At a press conference presenting Anna as Anastasia, Vlados, who met Anna at a hospital in Bucharest in 1920 and then took her home with him, accuses her of being Anna Koreff. Anna acknowledges that she has used that name, unsure of who she was. Vlados accuses her of having sustained head wounds in a train explosion outside Bucharest, not in a Russian assassination attempt. Anna replies that she remembers being in a train explosion and that it is possible to have been wounded twice in a revolution. Bounine expresses disapproval that Anna now wants to marry Paul, have the money and the nobility, whereas originally she just wanted to know who she really was. She points out that a month ago he wanted the same thing. He scornfully tells her to marry Paul, a man who would not go near her if she weren't an heiress. At a grand ball in Copenhagen at which Anna/Anastasia's engagement to Paul is to be announced, the Empress has a private conversation with Bounine in which he admits feelings for Anna, which impresses her. The Empress sends him to the Green Room. She next receives Anna whom she offers the emeralds of Catherine the Great which Anna refuses saying she has been given 'herself' again, which moves the Empress. She realizes that Anna has fallen in love with Bounine who she also sends to the Green Room. When it is time to announce Anastasia at the ball, an attendant announces that Anastasia cannot be found. The Empress asks whether he has checked the Green Room. When told yes, she then states decisively that Anastasia and Bounine have both gone. Prince Paul then asks, "You mean the others were right, she was not Anastasia after all?" The Empress responds, "Wasn't she?" When Paul asks what she will announce to the courtiers, the Empress responds, "I will say the play is over, go home", as the anthem God Save the Tsar is played.

Plot from Anastasia (1956 film)CC BY-SA 4.0