Private Vices, Public Virtues

“Royal passions that rocked a Crown...”

Rudolf (Lajos Balázsovits), the young heir to a Central European throne near the turn of the century, is bored by his proper wife and fills his days with affairs at a sprawling country estate. When she leaves and his friends arrive, Miklós Jancsó lets the gathering grow into a celebration that gives way to an orgy. The film, loosely drawn from the Mayerling incident, sets the private appetites of those in power against the order they are meant to uphold.