This page contains various reviews of the movie "Young Catherine", in which Mark Frankel played the role of Gregory Orlov. Below you will find the reviews as they were written... (hopefully) ..... as with any review, some are positive and some are negative.... a few don't even mention Mark at all..... (shame on them....). Either way, we hope that in providing this information, you might find that your interest is peaked and you will seek out the movie and decide for yourself. If you have already seen it, perhaps you'll be interested to see which reviewers, if any, agree with your assessment.....

THE SEATTLE TIMES
Thursday, February 14, 1991

Copyright 1991

  TV

History, Just For Fun: 'YOUNG CATHERINE'
John Voorhees

Not all this month's new TV movies are concerned with contemporary psychopaths -two premiering Sunday are steeped in history:  TNT's four-hour miniseries, "Young Catherine," at 5 and 7 on cable, and PBS' "Brother Future," a "Wonderworks" movie at 10 a.m. on KCTS-TV.

"Young Catherine"  is the kind of costume melodrama you didn't think they made anymore - but they did (at least Turner network did), and it works surprisingly well, thanks to astute casting and lavish filming in the U.S.S.R.

The "Young Catherine" of the title eventually would become Catherine the Great, but this movie stops at the point where she becomes the Empress of the Russias and chronicles her formative years after she left her native Prussia to become engaged to the Grand Duke Peter, destined to rule Russia after the death of the Empress Elizabeth, his aunt.  There were plenty of obstacles, including Catherine's scheming mother (who got herself thrown out of Russia), and the fact Empress Elizabeth was more interested in a male heir for the throne than in the future of Young Catherine.  The worst obstacle was Peter himself, more fascinated with playing soldier than in having marital relations.

Scriptwriter Chris Bryant and director Michael Anderson want to make all this history as entertainingly palatable as possible and the result is great fun, rather like and old M-G-M costume spectacle from that studio's heyday.

The supporting cast is fine:  Vanessa Redgrave has a ball as the Empress Elizabeth, Franco Nero plays a power broker, Marthe Keller is Catherine's mother and Christopher Plummer plays the British ambassador
who befriends Catherine.

The central roles are equally well-performed, beginning with Julia Ormond as Catherine, Reece Dinsdale as the nutty Grand Duke Peter and Mark Frankel as the dashing soldier who falls in love with Catherine.  All three are talented British performers whose experience ranges from Shakespeare to contemporary dramas - and viewers may remember Ormond's startling performance as the drugged-out student in "Traffik," the dynamite British series seen on PBS.

The second two hours of "Young Catherine" airs at 5 and 7 p.m. Monday, and all four hours will be repeated at 9 a.m. Feb 21 and 11 a.m. Feb 24.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Friday, February 15, 1991

Copyright 1991

E: LIFE: TELEVISION

Tale of courtly intrigue loses control of subject
David Klinghoffer

For a long time in European history, a failed marriage could lead not only to unhappiness but to civil disorder and war across the continent.  That's what makes the historical subject of "Young Catherine" - about the rise of Catherine the Great - so fascinating.

If  only director Michael Anderson had managed to keep pace with screenwriter Chris Bryant, TNT might have come away with a miniseries with a serious kick to it.

As related in "Young Catherine," which airs Sunday and Monday from 8 to 10 p.m., the facts go like this:  Catherine's father is a minor Prussian prince, and with the connivance of Prussia's Frederick the Great,
Catherine visits and wins favor at the court of Russia's Empress Elizabeth.  There she proves herself worthy of Elizabeth's nephew and intended successor, Grand Duke Peter.

Inconveniently, it turns out that Peter suffers from a combination of immaturity and insanity.  As amusingly portrayed by Reece Dinsdale, he's kind of a Russified Crispin Glover - whom Mr. Dinsdale actually resembles.  A queer young man, Peter prefers children's games to state affairs and turns hysterical under all sorts of unexpected circumstances.  Like Mr. Glover in "Wild at Heart," he even keeps some pet cockroaches.  He is, in short, fabulously wrong for the job of  Russian czar.

He also hates Catherine (Julia Ormond).  After surviving a bout of smallpox, for reasons having to do with a particular sexual defect he refuses to consummate their marriage.

Meanwhile the Empress (Vanessa Redgrave) is getting impatient, waiting for Catherine to deliver a son.  As Elizabeth, Miss Redgrave is wonderfully sinister.  With her broad, evil smile - "the Russian people are like children," she explains to Catherine - she's like a demon enthroned.  Her impatience obliges Catherine to take a lover, which in turn obliges Peter to take a mistress.

And so on, until the situation turns so bad that Catherine has to order a company of loyal soldiers home from the front, where they have been battling Frederick's army, to protect her from her own husband.

Now, lots of this is as fun as it sounds.  It's all like a big soap opera, where the stakes include the future of Europe from France to the Pacific Ocean.  Yet over these four hours, which include everything from court intrigue to kinky sex, your interest may drag.  This shouldn't happen.

Mostly it is the fault of Mr. Anderson, who seems to believe he's shooting pictures to appear in a high-school history textbook.

For the most part there's no faulting the actors here.  Maximillian Schell makes an attractively disheveled Frederick, while Christopher Plummer gets big billing for his small but charming role as the ambassador from England.  On the other hand, Catherine's lover, Mark Frankel, hams up the pining looks a little.  As Catherine herself, the slightly pinch-faced Miss Ormond is sound enough, but doesn't quite impress you as the woman of mixed greatness and perversity who has come down to us in history.  That, and the whole miniseries, may have been an impossible challenge.

* * * * TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS
WHAT:  "Young Catherine"
WHERE:  TNT
WHEN:  Sunday and Monday, 8 to 10 p.m.

Copyright 1991

WEEKEND PLUS
CABLE TELEVISION

TNT captures the intrigue of 'Catherine'

Julia Ormond plays the title role in TNT's "Young Catherine," premiering at 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday on local cable systems.

Young Catherine
3 stars

Filmed on location in Leningrad for cable's TNT, this lavish "Young Catherine" concentrates on the Cinderella aspects of the story.  The lovely Julia Ormond plays Catherine with a subtle combination of girlish charm, intelligence and steely ambition.  Although the real empress was an unattractive woman famous for her many lovers, Ormond's Catherine is a pure-hearted maid driven into a lover's arms by her sadistic and childish husband, Peter, played with grand nastiness by British actor Reece Dinsdale.

The first part of the program will premiere from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday on TNT:  the second half is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m.  Monday.  "Young Catherine" will be repeated at 9 p.m. Sunday (Part I) and Monday (Part II) and again at 11 a.m. Feb. 21 (Parts I and II) and at 1 p.m. Feb. 24 (Parts I and II).

Although it never has the pompous gait of a "Masterpiece Theatre" production, Part I drags a bit in bringing Catherine to the Russian court.  Things pick up considerably in Part II, as Catherine gets worldlier.  Peter gets kinkier and the courtly intrigue erupts into full-scale war.

With its elaborate costuming and name actors (Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Plummer, Franco Nero, Marthe Keller and Maximillian Schell), TNT's production, directed by Michael Anderson, is almost as spectacular as the real Catherine's story.