Marie Antoinette (1938)

Marie: Do you think one-hundred years hence some Swedish gentleman wandering in Paris might smile over a relic of Marie Antoinette? A miniature perhaps, or a ring? This very ring, for instance.
Marie: It's centuries old. It has an inscription on it --- "Everything leads me to thee."
[She places the ring in his hand]
Marie: Can you see it? Lying on a velvet cushion in its little glass case?
Count Axel de Fersen: I don't know... you might make a present of it, perhaps, to some man who had loved you and it would be worn on his hand for as long as he lived and buried with him when he died because he loved you reverently and as was fitting from a respectable distance but with all his heart for all this life.

---

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Why, this is barbarous! Must the queen's child be born in public?
Count de Mercey: Dr. Franklin, a French monarch belongs to the public. He must be born, he must live and he must die in public.

---

Count Axel de Fersen: When I'm gone you'll be glad that I didn't stand in the path of your destiny making you less than you were meant to be.
Marie: And that other kingdom? The love, the youth, the happiness we might have had... what of that?
Count Axel de Fersen: We shall dream of it more tenderly because we didn't destroy it.

---

read more quotes from Marie Antoinette...

There is a key scene in that film where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are dancing the Charleston at the "Bedford Falls High School" prom, when suddenly the gym floor slides open, plunging the dancers into a swimming pool. (Later, when walking home, wearing a bathrobe, Donna gets stuck in the bushes without any clothes on.) That dance scene was filmed using an actual covered swimming pool in the gym at Beverly Hills High School (241 Moreno Drive) near Century City. The gym is located on the south side of the campus, near the high school's track. The sound director, Douglas Shearer, is the brother of Norma Shearer and had served as such in many other films of this era.
According to Wikipedia, the movie had thousands of costumes and lavish set designs. Adrian visited France and Austria in 1937 researching the period. He studied the paintings of Marie Antoinette, even using a microscope on them so that the embroidery and fabric could be identical. Fabrics were specially woven and embroidered with stitches sometimes too fine to be seen with the naked eye. The attention to detail was extreme, from the framework to hair. Some gowns became extremely heavy due to the embroidery, flounces and precious stones used. Norma Shearer's gowns alone had a combined weight of over 1,768 lb., the heaviest being the wedding dress.
read more facts about Marie Antoinette...