Back bruised from his Hollywood encounter and with a new nose, the great Ivan Mozjoukine took on "Le Rouge et le Noir" and everyone said he looked like Julien Sorel's dad. However he's clearly our man, out-fencing the aristos, whose company he wants to join, making it with three women including the inn keeper's daughter he leaves naked, a young woman above his station and Lil Dagover getting one of her best outings, winding herself around our hero in her unwrapped wrap and greeting him in ecstasy outside the Cathedral, where he finds her praying.
Stendahl gets left behind in the action adventure material, including an escape from the guillotine, but what the heck? The piece is handsomely mounted and made with a sure sense of film form. It counts as one of Mozjoukine's best.
