Rasputin & the Record

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"Is it not true that you were suffering from a nervous strain so that you hardly knew what you were doing?"

"Of course, of course," snapped Prince Youssoupov, "I am not a professional murderer."

What M-G-M was paying Sir William Jowitt's large fee for was not to get this story made a matter of oath but to try to show that the cinema characters of Prince Chegodiev and Princess Natasha were not drawn from the Youssoupovs. Very quickly he made the following points:

1) The murder in the cinema was the work of one man, thus differing in detail from the actuality.

2) At the time of the murder of Rasputin, Princess Irina, instead of being a young girl at court in Petrograd, was married and a mother and visiting relatives in the Caucasus.

3) The character of Prince Chegodiev resembles Grand Duke Dmitri* quite as much as it does Prince Youssoupov.

Next came a file of potent witnesses who testified that they could find no connection between the character of the cinema's Princess Natasha and Princess Youssoupov. Most impressive was Commander Oliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson. Now a Conservative M. P. for Birmingham, he is the son of famed Poet Frederick Locker-Lampson. During the War he went to Russia in command of a squadron of armored cars. Last week in London he testified:

"I have an interest in fair play and right. I was actually acquainted not only with Rasputin himself, but with Purish-kevitch and the others. I was actually invited by Purishkevitch to murder Rasputin. . . . We had a plot on foot to save the Tsar, but nothing came of it. Chegodiev in the film seemed more like Grand Duke Dmitri. It never occurred to me Natasha was Princess Irina."

Relaxing, Sir William delivered himself of a few thoughts on libel law in general:

"I feel talking pictures will provide a new branch of the law, being capable of producing both slander and libel at one and the same time. For instance if when Rasputin says 'Natasha, we are going to punish Paul, you and I,' she advances with a simpering smile one inference can be drawn, but if she shrinks back in obvious horror you might draw another inference altogether. I doubt if it is libel to say a woman was raped, because the usual definition of libel is something holding a person up to ridicule, hatred or contempt."

Nevertheless, after viewing the movie several times, the jury decided that, libel or slander, Princess Youssoupov deserved £25,000 ($126,800) in damages.