Rasputin & the Record

(2 of 3)

What happened in that interval has been written about and told many times, with many variations. Two years ago M-G-M decided that a story based on Rasputin and the Russian court would be ideal material to exhibit the varied talents of the Barrymore family. Ethel could be regal and throaty as the Tsarina. Lionel could leer and spit as Rasputin. John could push his delicate profile through a series of love scenes as a Prince Chegodiev. There was also a Princess Natasha with whom Chegodiev was in love. When Rasputin seduces Princess Natasha, Chegodiev proceeds to murder the monk in accord with history.

Film executives forgot that Prince Youssoupov, widely known as the killer of Rasputin, is very much alive and no stranger to the courts. Spurred by a shrewd woman lawyer in Manhattan, named Fanny Holtzman, Princess Youssoupov brought suit against M-G-M claiming that the character of Princess Natasha was supposedly patterned after her own and that she had suffered grievous wrong at the suggestion that she had been seduced or raped by Rasputin.

"Do you understand what rape means?" asked Sir Patrick Hastings of his client as the London trial got under way.

"I am not sure I do," replied the Princess.

What everyone waited for was Prince Youssoupov's sworn story of the killing of Rasputin. MGM's counsel, ponderous Sir William Jowitt, pieced it together by leading questions and quotations from Prince Youssoupov's book, Rasputin.

The plot to murder Rasputin originated in a Guards regiment in which Prince Youssoupov and the Grand Duke Dmitri were serving. They enlisted the aid of Vladimir Purishkevitch, a member of the Duma. When lecherous Rasputin reached the Youssoupov palace on the night of Dec. 16, servants were kept at the head of the stairs, talking, playing the phonograph, acting as if a party were still in progress. Downstairs used plates and half-filled glasses were scattered about as if a formal supper had just ended. Some little cakes and a few glasses of wine were packed with enough potassium cyanide to fell a span of oxen. Rasputin wolfed these whole.

For a full half hour Felix Youssoupov played the guitar and sang gypsy songs while Rasputin calmly licked his fingers and showed no ill effects. Finally he let out a great roar and tumbled over backward.

"I cannot explain why," said Prince Youssoupov, "but I suddenly seized him by both arms and violently shook him. As I did that his eyes trembled and lifted."

Frightened, Youssoupov pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired into the monk's greasy soutane. Rasputin, foaming at the mouth, kept whispering "Felix, Felix." Youssoupov rushed upstairs where Grand Duke Dmitri. Deputy Purishkevitch and another conspirator named Sukhotin were waiting. "He's alive! He's alive!" cried the Prince. They could hear Rasputin bellowing as he crawled upstairs on hands and knees. Purishkevitch fired three more shots, and Rasputin was pushed out on the sidewalk.

"Ahem," said Sir William ruffling the leaves of the Prince's book, "what did you mean by saying 'I rushed at the body and battered it with a loaded stick?' "

'"I did that because 1 saw he was moving."