"Accidental Lessons from Hollywood on Monarchy" Topic

"The 1939 film "Juarez", a biopic of Mexico's most famous president, is well worth looking at for monarchists, even if that seems odd. Juarez is upheld as the 'Abraham Lincoln of Mexico' and this point is driven home hard in the film to the extent that Juarez is rarely seen on-screen without a portrait of Lincoln in the background. It is a love letter to Benito Juarez and makes no apologies for that. However, it does not vilify Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota either. Being all about deifying Juarez, it certainly is against the monarchy and their very presence in Mexico, however, it spares the idealistic couple and focuses its wrath on the French Emperor Napoleon III. From the perspective of this film, Napoleon was the real villain, a wicked tyrant on a mission to eradicate democracy and republicanism in the New World whereas the handsome young couple, Maximilian and Carlota, are pitiable dupes; good people tricked into an "evil" enterprise by a manipulative Frenchman. Because of this, the Emperor actually comes off as a rather sympathetic figure. For a broad overview of the film, you can read a review of it here.

For me, one part of the film, two scenes, really stand out as being worthwhile, though they will be of most benefit only to those who know their history and in light of the events of our own time. In the first, Emperor Maximilian comes to meet with the captured rebel General Porfirio Diaz in his prison cell, in an effort to convince him to take a message to his president, offering to make Juarez the Prime Minister of the Mexican Empire. Emperor Maximilian has some very good lines as he makes the case for having a free and liberal society with a benevolent monarch at its head as a sort of safety valve. He presents such a good case that he seems to have won Diaz over and convinced him that the Emperor is a man of sincerity who wants the same things for Mexico that Juarez wants and Diaz goes to deliver this message to the President along with his offer to make Juarez his premier and allow him to run the government of Imperial Mexico. The next scene is Juarez, with kindly bemusement, listening to the naive, young general who has been duped by Maximilian. Juarez then starts preaching the republican gospel to Porfirio and showing him the error of his ways…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Paul Muni played the title character,with Bette Davis as Carlota.

Always enjoy this flick. And poor Carlotta, a Belgian and a cousin of Queen Victoria, went somewhat insane and died in 1926.