"Doppia Coppia con Regina" - Set photos

In 1972 Marisa Mell starred in the Spanish drama production "Alta Tension" from director Julio Buchs with fellow co-stars Gabriele Ferzetti and Helga Liné. Among fans of Marisa Mell the movie is often better known as "Doppia Coppia con Regina", the Italian title of the movie. What makes this set of photos remarkable is that they are not, as often is done, taken from the film negative but are in fact on set pictures taken by a set photographer mostly working next to the running film camera or taking shots of the action and the stars between the set up of the next movie shots! So this is quite rare to see these on set photos of Marisa Mell during the production of a movie! These photos are not regarded as behind the scene photos because there is no equiment or staff visible on them. On set pictures were often used for promotion of the movie in magazines, newspapers...

Elisabeth, Kaiserin von Österreich - Ich möchte eine Möwe sein!

The year 1972 was a busy one for Marisa Mell. After filming two westerns back to back "Tutti fratelli nel west... per parte di padre" and "Amico, stammi lontano almeno un palmo", a giallo "Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso", a crime movie "Alta tensión" and a documentary film "Magic Graz" about her native town Graz in Austria, she still had the time to film a German black and white made for television movie called "Elisabeth-Kaiserin von Österreich-Ich möchte eine Möwe sein!" (Elisabeth-Empress of Austria-I would like to be a seagull!) .

In this movie she plays the main part of the empress Elisabeth von Österreich-Ungarn (December 24th 1837-September 10th 1898), generally known by the public as "Sissi", made famous by Romy Schneider in three German language movies in the fifties.

The main part of the movie was filmed at different original locations in Vienna, Austria like Schloss Schönbrunn, the home of the then royal reigning family the Habsburgs. The aim of the movie was to give a historically correct view of the life at the Austrian court during the reign of Emperor Franz-Jozeph I.

The television movie was a co-production between the Austrian state television "ORF" and the second German commercial television "ZDF". The television movie premiered on "ORF" in Austria on December 20th 1972. The critics and ratings were disasterous after the broadcast. So the co-producer "ZDF" did not know what to do with the movie: broadcast it or not! Finally they decided to do it more than a year after the initial production in the month of june 1973. Before airing one of the most important German political magazines "Der Spiegel" dedicated an article to the production history of the movie in it's 1973 issue # 26 . It sabled the movie down in pieces.

(Free translation of the article: In the can is in the can. One of Austria's "biggest garbage ever" the bombed made for TV movie is now ready to be screened before a German audience by the ZDF. It happened to Furst von Bismarck, and also Martin Luther King and Reichpräsident Friedrich Ebert had to endure it! In its biographies made for television, the ZDF loves to portray great people from world history. This series of costumes, giant paintings and drama is now being continued by the Mainzer (= reference to the crew of the ZDF because the seat of the company is in the German town called Mainz) with another historical piece. In co-production with the ORF, they filmed the love life and sufferings of Queen Elisabeth, also known as Sissi, who was married to Emperor Franz-Joseph I. With this court drama to honor her 135th day of birth both companies were aiming to historically correct the cheesy "Sissi"-films from the fifties. In three extremly tear jerking movies Romy Schneider played very convincing "the values of the heart and humanity as a characteristic Austrian way of life" according to the Austrian secretary of eduction in a laudatio. Indeed on the screen the current production of the Empress-fairy tale looks like a joke compared to the Romy Schneider romances which can be seen as Visconti movies. When the made for television movie in april of 1972 went before the board of directors of the ORF to get their approval they declared: "the biggest garbage that has been produced since a long time". To safe this clobbered unprofessional directed drama ("This piece of crap" voiced by the show and games director of the ORF Kuno Köbl) they asked Marisa Mell and other actors back in the studio and filmed very long sequences again. Even with this beauty make over, which cost another 120.000 DM above the already 350.000 DM for the first shooting, "Sissi" could not be saved. When the movie was first shown last december on the Austrian tv, the Vienna "Kurier" called it the TV-miscarriage of 1972. The ZDF, paying 70% of the production costs of this monster, did not fight this bomb. Although the chief of documentaries Jurgen Neve-du Mont once declared to skip over the top historical drama's ("UFA in acid drenged clay trays"), this piece of crap will be put on the programm next friday at 20.15 as "Elisabeth, Empress of Austria" during 75 minutes. Hei-Wi-Tip-Top, in the can is in the can!)