The Sissi Collection - 4-DVD Set ( Sissi / Sissi - Die junge Kaiserin / Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin / Mädchenjahre einer Königin ) ( Sissi / Sissi: The Young Empress / Sissi: The Fatef

Being I grew up watching these movies in Germany, I was absolutely ecstatic when I actually was able to find this collection. I loved every minute of it. I am lucky to understand it so I didn't have to read the subtitles but in any case, it is great memories of life I no longer live but I cherish every moment of.Enjoy it even if words are missing!

I watched these movies with my mama as a child, when she was recently undergoing chemo therapy and couldn’t leave the house, I surprised her with this Collection ... she loved it! (I want to afford myself this collection too!) would totally recommend it to anyone who understands German :)

This collectiom consists of (3) stories of the Empress being chosen over her sisterand the life she faces as the Empress of Austria. Romey Schneider as the Empresspulls this off magnificently in every way possible. Anyone interested in Empress Sissithis is the collection to get. It's the original from the 1950's and has everything.Two thumbs up, way up !

Not in English, but does have captions. I bought this because of the pretty dresses she wears

every year at christmas, i saw sissi, it is tradition in germany. now i can watch it here like i did at home in germany, its not christmas without this movie. i love sissi !!!! now if i could get the slipper and the rose, i will be more than happy.

This is a classic. Having grown up in The Netherlands, this is what we watch every Christmas. Now in the US, I realized I missed it, so I bougt this collection. I will definitely be watching it again every year!

These 4 films represent Ernst Marischka's collaboration with the young Romy Schneider, a surpassingly beautiful German actress who was 16 years old when she made the first film; its German title translates literally as "The Maiden Years of a Queen" (released to English-speaking audiences as "Victoria in Dover"), which depicts an entirely fictional incident in the early life of Queen Victoria. The other 3 films tell the story of the tragic Empress Elisabeth ("Sissi") of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Josef and mother of the suicide Crown Prince Rudolf. Romy ultimately gave up on the Sissi project, walked out on a projected 4th film, and later complained that the role of Sissi stuck to her "like oatmeal."These films are hopelessly romanticized Viennese whipped cream and tell almost nothing of the troubled life of a tormented empress. The first film in the trilogy deals with the origin of the couple's relationship, but garbles the facts. True, the plan was for Franz Josef to marry Sissi's older sister Helene, but he found her unattractive and preferred the beautiful, spirited Elisabeth. His mother Sophie (Elisabeth's aunt) felt Elisabeth was too young and high-spirited to make a good empress. All true, but the film's compression of these events into less than 24 hours is impossible to accept. The script has Franz and Sissi meet by chance when Elisabeth, visiting the imperial resort at Ischl with her mother and Helene, goes fishing and literally hooks Franz Josef who just happens to ride by the river in an open carriage. He falls for her, but because they had only met as children, he doesn't recognize her and for some reason she doesn't tell him who she is. Franz catches on when she appears at his birthday ball that evening, and he decides he's going to marry her or nobody. He humiliates Helene before the court by snubbing her to dance with Elisabeth. At that point, Franz and Elisabeth have known each other for maybe 8 hours.This is about as believable as cold fusion. The episode at Ischl really lasted for several days, and since no engagement to Helene was announced, she was not publicly embarrassed when Franz chose Sissi. (In fact, Helene went on to marry the richest prince in Germany, which makes nonsense of a scene in one of the later films when she tells Franz that she never married because she is still nursing her lost love for him.) The film ends with an elaborate wedding in Vienna, at which the Vienna Boys Choir sing Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus. Such music would not have been sung at a Catholic ruler's wedding, because it's from a Protestant oratorio. Anyway, why Handel when Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert all worked in Vienna?The second film, "The Young Empress," presents the problems created for the young couple by Franz' mother Sophie, who tries to keep them apart because Franz has to see to his duties. Sophie objects if Sissi goes shopping in Vienna, uses Sissi's lady-in-waiting as a spy, and reports the contents of Sissi's diary to Franz. A sore point for Sophie is that Elisabeth likes Hungary and the Hungarians, despite Hungary's recent revolt against Austria. Given Sophie's constant meddling in her son's married life, it's something of a surprise when Sissi finds out she's pregnant. (Well, at least Sophie wasn't hiding under the bed.)It's a girl. Sophie names the child after herself, and removes the baby from Sissi's care on the grounds that Elisabeth cannot be distracted by a baby but must accompany Franz on his imperial rounds.At this point a consistent pattern surfaces. Sophie does or says something that upsets Sissi. Sissi cries and pouts. Franz says his mother is right. Sissi runs away from Vienna. Franz goes after her, gives in and Sissi gets her own way. Over and over again. And again. Eventually beautiful costumes, sumptuous interiors and splendid music can't conceal this pattern's recurrences. Anyway Sissi gets the baby back, helps reconcile Hungary to Austria and the second film ends with yet another brilliant ceremony as she and Franz are crowned king and queen of Hungary.The third film addresses the first of Sissi's supposed bouts with tuberculosis. These illnesses kept her out of Vienna most of her life, but few historians accept that she was really sick. Elisabeth was a deeply troubled woman who restlessly wandered around Europe and spent little time with her husband. Poorly educated and unprepared in any sense for marriage, she never had a chance to evolve an adult understanding of herself and fell back on her physical beauty as a center around which to organize a sense of self. Like most women of her rank, she was unaware of what awaited her in marriage and by all accounts, her wedding night was tantamount to domestic rape. Deeply traumatized, she bore Franz 3 children---that many only because the first 2 were girls. After the birth of a son, she withdrew from Franz' intimacy because she feared more pregnancies would ruin her beauty, which she called "the gods' greatest gift." Her alleged illnesses kept her out of Vienna and out of his arms. (The real Elisabeth returned to Franz' bed 10 years after their son's birth, to get him to recognize Hungary as an equal partner in the Dual Monarchy; they hoped for another son, but had a 3rd girl.)These films offer beautiful paper dolls, replete with one magnificent costume after another, displayed in magnificent Viennese settings and lavished with beautiful music. But that's it. The scripts are trite, and the actors can't do much more than recite Marischka's clicheed dialogue. The only scenes that come to life involve Sissi's parents, Princess Ludovika and her husband Duke Max. (Ludovika is played by Romy Schneider's mother, Magda Schneider, reputedly one of Hitler's favorites, though she was never subjected to denazification.) Duke Max was a notoriously unconventional prince, whom Ludovika loves unconditionally; for a royal pair, they led a remarkably informal life at Possenhofen, and perhaps for that reason they are the only characters in these films who act like genuine human beings. Romy Schneider's refusal to continue with the series kept Marischka from addressing the crises of Elisabeth's later life, including her son's suicide and ending with her murder near Geneva. Marischka was a genius at ducking the real issues in Sissi's life, and perhaps we should be glad he never got a chance to deal with Mayerling.The pan-and-scan transfer of these films to DVD is not 100% successful; perhaps poor quality prints were used. The saturated colors of 1950s films come across well enough, but the sound is another matter. The disks feature English subtitles that vanish for short stretches, so viewers unfamiliar with German may find themselves at a loss for a few moments now and then. If you're looking for history, don't expect it here. If you're satisfied with ravishing scenery, stunning costumes, overwhelming court pageantry and Strauss waltzes, you could do a lot worse than spend an afternoon or evening with Sissi.

Best purchase ever