viswanat-1

Only Rod Steiger could do this character. Perfect. He is Jewish and that may have helped him live the character so well.

Movie goers specially those who like documentaries must adhere to facts,be free from prejudice and never inject their own opinions into the story being related.If they cannot they have no business in the documentary film industry. This chap Dinesh D'Souza is a well known right wing conservative who thinks he is some major spokes person for the conservative population and the GOP in particular.He started writing his book about Obama with a mind already set on denigrating the President and has had no time to examine the facts but set a course for the film based only on his opinions with no credible fact to support his statements. If anyone knows nothing about Obama he/she will go home brain washed and thinking the President is a socialist anti-American, anti-colonialist and an anti-capitalist. All of this is wrong and many slightly left liberals will vouch for that fact because Obama failed to keep a lot of promises he made to the youth and middle class in his presidential campaign.The film made a lot of Obama haters watching the film nod their heads vigorously so they can go off to the polls and justify their support of anyone who would replace him in the White House. Those who have followed Obama from his days in the White House and read his recent biography "Barack Obama-The Story" will know that D'Souza has given vent to his rampant prejudice and aims to make money in the process and given the public a crass film.

I had little experience of silent films except few and far between until I saw The Last Command. With the great Josef von Sternberg directing and Oscar winning performance by Emil Jannings, I knew I could expect something memorable and I was richly rewarded in experience when I viewed it. Now I have no qualms about silent films and have become something of a fan of them. Three other silent films of equal caliber came to my mind when I watched this film; The Passion of Joan of Arc,Nanook of the North and Battleship Potemkin I noted that to bring the full effect of a movie's message and produce entertainment as well, it is a much harder task for the performers than with sound and dialog. In this film, Jannings outdid himself and absolutely deserved the Oscar, the first for a foreign actor in Oscar history. His haughty bearing as the imperial Russian general and appropriate facial expressions were totally convincing and he appeared taller and grander than himself in real life. Then again, as the devastated,humiliated extra in the Hollywood Bread line he was just as superb. he was able to project that false dignity even as he was dressed up in the uniform of his former rank in the Russian army for the part he was asked to play. The last few minutes of this movie brought to memory his depiction of Emmanuel Rath in the other great movie he made with Marlene Dietrich, Blue Angel, but in Last Command he was even more admirable. One gets deeply into the atmosphere of the scenes, the story and the music when one watches this film. For that, the credit goes to Sternberg as much or more than to the principal actors. The music score was also so very beautiful and made for a great total effect.Performances by Evelyn Brent and William Powell were also superb. Brent did a great job both as the delicate beauty as well as the vicious turn coat in her role.