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Conquest
Scene from the film
Directed by	Clarence Brown
Produced by	Bernard H. Hyman
Written by	S. N. Behrman Salka Viertel Waclaw Gasiorowski (novel)
Starring	Greta Garbo Charles Boyer Reginald Owen Alan Marshal
Music by	Herbert Stothart
Cinematography	Karl Freund
Editing by	Tom Held
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	1937
Running time	113 min
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Conquest (also called Marie Walewska) is a 1937 film which tells the story of a Polish countess who becomes the mistress of Napoleon in order to influence his actions towards her homeland. It stars Greta Garbo, Charles Boyer, Reginald Owen, Alan Marshal, Henry Stephenson, Leif Erickson, Dame May Whitty, George Zucco, and Maria Ouspenskaya.

The movie was adapted by S. N. Behrman, Samuel Hoffenstein, Helen Jerome and Salka Viertel from the novel Pani Walewska by Waclaw Gasiorowski. It was directed by Clarence Brown and Gustav Machatý (uncredited).

It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Charles Boyer) and Best Art Direction.

This movie was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's biggest money losing movie prior to 1949.

After a brief informal meeting two months earlier when they were impressed with each other, Countess Marie Walewska (Garbo) formally meets Napoleon Bonaparte (Boyer) at a ball in Warsaw. When Napoleon notes her husband, Count Walewski (Stephenson), is three times her age, and as he is taken with her charms, he unsuccessfully tries to seduce her. She ignores his frequent letters and flowers until a few grim Polish leaders led by Senator Malachowski (Zucco) urge her to give into his desires as a personal sacrifice in order to save Poland. She goes to him despite the humiliation of her husband, who leaves for Rome to annul their marriage. They are extremely happy for a while; Napoleon divorces childless Empress Josephine and Marie eventually becomes pregnant. She is about to tell Napoleon about her baby when he tells her he decided to marry Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. He explains it will be a political marriage to insure his future son could rule securely with Hapsburg blood in him. It will not affect their relationship, he says, but Marie Walewska leaves to have her baby alone without telling Napoleon she is expecting his child.

Miscellany

The part of Marie's child was played in the movie by my mother. Her name was never added to the movie credits, but she was paid a $50 savings bond for appearing in the movie. Her name was Shirley Vanna Fuller: born July 16, 1937 in Los Angeles, California, USA, and died February 12, 1976 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Shirley Vanna Hignett's (nee Fuller) Social Security Records show her mother, Mary Dicie Fuller (nee Shirley), signed as she was under 1 year of age and Shirley Vanna Fuller's employer at the time was MGM Studios. Shirley Vanna Fuller's parents were born in Atlanta Georgia. Her father, Van Arnold Fuller, was employed to paint movie props at MGM when his daughter was born. MGM needed a baby to play the part of Napoleon's son in the movie. There is a newspaper clipping in the Los Angeles newspaper in July 1937 which notes this fact, as well as the information listed on the child's Social Security records.