Great Catherine is a 1968 British comedy film directed by Gordon Flemyng, based on a 1913 one act play by George Bernard Shaw, and starring Peter O'Toole, Zero Mostel, Jeanne Moreau and Jack Hawkins. Like the play, it is loosely based on the story of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams and his time spent as an envoy at the Russian court.
It was shot at Shepperton Studios near London with sets designed by the art directors John Bryan and William Hutchinson. The score was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin.
Synopsis
A British officer, Captain Charles Edstaston, is sent to the Russian court of Catherine the Great as an envoy, where he has to contend with the crafty machinations of her chief minister Potemkin.
Cast
Peter O'Toole as Charles Edstaston
Jeanne Moreau as Catherine the Great
Zero Mostel as Potemkin
Jack Hawkins as British Ambassador
Akim Tamiroff as Sergeant
Marie Lohr as Dowager Lady Gorse
Kate O'Mara as Varinka
Angela Scoular as Claire
Oliver MacGreevy as General Pyskov
James Mellor as Colonel Pugachov
Lea Seidl as Grand Duchess
Claire Gordon as Elizabeth Vokonska
Declan Mulholland as Count Tokhtamysh
Janet Kelly as Anna Schuvalova
Henry Woolf as Egrebyomka
Critical reception
TV Guide wrote, "They waited 55 years to make it (Shaw's play) into a film and would have been well advised to wait another 55 years. What a mishmash!...Mostel, unless held in check, always overacts, and this is a prime example of a stage actor, accustomed to having to play "big" for the people in the last row, overdoing things for the close-up camera"; whereas The New York Times wrote, "GREAT CATHERINE has a great clown named Zero Mostel...the glorious hamming of the portly American makes the picture...Surely Mr. Mostel's antics would have won the playwright's approval...The story, Braced immeasurably by the Shavian lines, as arranged by the scenarist, Hugh Leonard, and stylishly piloted by the director, Gordon Flemyng, the picture is also beautiful in its lavish décor, costumes and color photography."