Tatjana

It takes place in Russia, but otherwise this film is a long way from "The Scarlet Empress." Marlene Dietrich, playing an aristocrat who is targeted by the Bolsheviks, does not display her usual tough persona. She's warm, human, almost innocent, not to mention gorgeous. No wonder so many of the male characters take great risks and even betray their beliefs to help her. Robert Donat's character, the man who wins her heart, is a British agent operating under deep cover, originally assigned to infiltrate radical groups in Czarist Russia. Caught up in World War I and the Russian Revolution, he is cut off from contact with his spy bosses for years. Alone and then with his lady love, he has a remarkable series of adventures. The story is sweeping, fast-paced and intelligent, making "Knight Without Armour" one of the best movies in English about this turbulent period in Russian history. As some other commentators have noted, it is not propagandistic. Czarist Russia is shown as an often unjust and corrupt place, but also tormented by mindless radical terrorism. The Bolsheviks who later seize power are a mix of idealists, thugs and fanatics, with the fanatics on their way to gaining the upper hand. You don't have to care about Russia to enjoy this movie. If you like intelligent thrills, you ought to see it.

In "Knight Without Armour" (***) Robert Donat plays a British journalist in 1914 revolutionary Russia who is persuaded by his government to go undercover as a "red." The catch is that if he's caught the British home office will disavow any knowledge of him. He is caught and spends two years in Siberia before the death of Czar Nicholas and the fall of the Russian nobility free him. He then becomes the right hand man for an influential revolutionary commissar. Needless to say, his heart isn't really in it and when he gets an opportunity to escort a rich and pampered Russian countess back to headquarters in Petrograd for questioning he decides to help them both escape from the country. They are then tossed about like footballs from one side to the other. The plot is really rather ingenious, although you get the impression that the filmaker's hearts are more on the side of the corrupt "white" establishment if for no other reason that it never misses an occasion for glamorous star close-ups of Marlene D. in extravagantly opulent costumes. Even a young red official is so smitten with her he sacrifices himself in order to save her and Donat from one nasty predicament. I suppose the film wanted to avoid appearing to be too pro-communist, but in the process it comes down a little too much on the side of "noblesse oblige." The film ends a bit abruptly with Donat and Dietrich seemingly a long way from being out of the woods yet, but all-in-all it's beautifully produced and holds the interest pretty much all the way through. Good scene: Dietrich awakening one morning alone in her palace to discover that her entire household of servants has fled. If you can find a good print of this unusual oldie, it's worth seeing.

That was Jacques Feyder's only English movie.He had just done his major works " Le Grand Jeu" "Pension mimosas" and "La Kermesse Heroique" and "Knight without armour" in spite of obvious qualities cannot compare with them.

This is a tormented love story between a commissar (Donat) and a Russian countess of the old Russian aristocracy (Dietrich)who try to get to the border .The plot sometimes recalls a "Doctor Zhivago" in miniature.

Best scenes ,in my opinion,are to be found in the first part: Dietrich,walking across her desirable mansion,all dressed in white ,finding that her staff has left home and joined the revolution;the same,facing a sinister-looking pack of Reds in her park.

The mad station master,ceaselessly repeating that a train is coming into the station (madness was also present in Feyder's former works :"Le Grand jeu "was a good example of folie à deux )

This was one of the most extreme examples of the durability of eye makeup in 30s cinema. Whether waking up from deep sleep, held prisoner without toilette facilities, covered with dead leaves on a forest floor, traveling across the muddy steppe, the leading lady's penciled brows, shadowed lids and false eyelashes neither budge nor smudge. Even the lipstick stays perfect until near the end when a bout of illness suddenly erases it.

But seriously, this is a thoughtful and multifaceted look at the Russian Revolution from a James Hilton novel. But too often the plot wanders off periodically into atmospheric details until one forgets it entirely until it picks up again, reminding us that, oh yes, there is a plot.

Marlene Dietrich plays a beautiful countess who emerges from her silken sheets one morning to face a silent mob of armed revolutionary peasants marching directly towards her. She is taken prisoner but rescued by Robert Donat, a British agent posing as a Russian revolutionary. Together they flee their Red pursuers through the wreckage and chaos of post-Revolutionary Russia.

As in Doctor Zhivago many years later, we enter the Russian civil war from the perspective of the Reds and then the Whites. This film lacks Zhivago's sweep and scope but presents a convincing and compelling, if somewhat sketchy, picture of its time and place with masterful camera work, authentic looking costumes and surroundings (including actual condensed breath when called for), stirring Russian music, a sigh-inducingly romantic portrayal by Dietrich, the last of her wide-eyed, breathy ingénues, and one of imperturbable gallantry and nobility by Donat.

Robert Donat speaks Russian, so he gets sent to Russia by the British Government to spy on the growing communist movement. When they take over, he's on his own resources, and Aristocratic Marlene Dietrich to take care of, as they try to get to safety.

It's not a particularly original script, but the handling suggests that director Jacques Feyder and cameraman Harry Stradling had seen both the MGM A TALE OF TWO CITIES and THE SCARLET EMPRESS; there are plenty of touches that suggest both. Add in two performers acting a a hot storm, and a lovely small turn by John Clements as a sentimental Bolshevik, and you have a movie that perhaps should have done better. I suppose the problem was that Alexander Korda overspent on it, and it shows in occasional bloat.