Tovarich

Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert are always good if not excellent, and this film is worth watching for their sake. Basil Rathbone also makes one of his good appearances. The story is more arguable. Boyer and Colbert are refugees from the Russian revolution, and as Russian aristocrats of the highest order they end up in Paris, where they have to turn to extreme measures in order to survive, including even stealing. Finally they get work as servants in a rich Frenchman's house, where at a party one of their deadliest enemies from Russia, the bolshevik commissar Basil Rathbone turns up as a guest, and there are some arguments. That is all. The main theme of the story is the obligation of the aristocrats (Boyer and Colbert) to stick to their code of honour, and in that process they commit the most incredible acts contrary to common sense. If this comedy is supposed to be flippant and witty, it doesn't raise many laughs. The funniest person is the fat dinner lady of a guest who speaks a language that is impossible for anyone to understand, performing a feat of unintelligibility. The start of the film is rather amusing, but then all of the rest seems mainly rather awkward. Still Anatole Litvak is the director and Max Steiner made the music. They have both done better.

Adapted from a French play authored by Jacques Deval, Tovarich had a successful run on Broadway the year before the film came out for 356 performances. Robert Sherwood did the adaption and for the screen, the talents of Casey Robinson were brought in to adapt Tovarich to another medium. Usually these collaborative efforts tend to dilute, but in the case of Tovarich, it's bright sophisticated comedy that gives both Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert two of their best screen roles.

Boyer and Colbert play a couple of exiled Russian nobles living in genteel poverty in Paris as so many did after the Russian Revolution. She's a bit more noble than he, Colbert is actually a blood Romanov and Boyer only married into the royal family. Before he and the family were overthrown, Nicholas II gave Boyer a lot of Russian gold, smuggled out of the country which Boyer laundered to use the modern term and deposited in a French bank under his name. Although no one could have blamed him for occasionally dipping in just for the bare necessities, Boyer and Colbert have refused to do it.

What they're sitting on it for, who can tell. They refuse an a request for money from another exile Morris Carnovsky for some wild scheme to restore the Romanovs. Boyer and Colbert have woke up and smelled the coffee, the Romanov restoration just ain't happening. But what to do with that money, especially when you're living one meal to the next.

Colbert and Boyer take jobs as butler and maid to a wealthy Parisian family consisting of Melville Cooper, Isabel Jeans, Anita Louise, and Maurice Murphy. Reasoning after all that their former status has acquainted them somewhat with the finer things and how that life should be lived. It takes a bit of getting used to as far as the reversal of stations, but gradually they ingratiate themselves with the family.

The big test comes when a dinner party is given and a Commissar from the Soviet Union played by smooth Basil Rathbone is invited. He's got some history with the Romanovs and things get both funny and tense at the same time. A real achievement for director Anatole Litvak.

Tovarich was also the source of a Broadway musical from 1963 in which Vivien Leigh starred in the Claudette Colbert role.

If you think you've figured out who the good and bad people are than you are in for a surprise. Tovarich takes no sides in the politics, it presents the Bolsheviks and Romanovs with all the warts showing. It does it with sparkling humor as well. Try to catch it when broadcast next.

Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer make a delightful team in this stylish thirties comedy. This film is creative and amusing in much the same manner as My Man Godfry. For anyone who enjoys black and white films this will be enjoyable. It has something about it of the grace and style of the old Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers films.

"Tovarich" is the story about two members of the Russian royalty who are married and living in exile in France following the Russian Revolution of 1917. Prince Mikail (Charles Boyer) and Grand Duchess Tatiana (Claudette Colbert) are living in poverty and they eat by Tatiana stealing food from the local market....but she doesn't just steal, she steals luxury items like champagne and caviar because, as she sees it, they are above laws that apply to commoners and they NEED caviar and champagne.

After years of living in squalor, Mikail decides that it's finally time for them to get jobs (you think?!?!?!). You learn all this in the first few minutes of the film...and I found myself thoroughly hating the couple. While I am no fan of the Revolution, rich pigs like this couple were the reason for such a revolution...and the film gives you no reason to look on them positively!

When they obtain jobs as domestics, the pair are happy and their employers, at first, have no idea their servants are members of royalty. But problems develop when Commissar Grotochenko (Basil Rathbone) comes for dinner, as he represents the new Russian government and he naturally hates royals. What's next? See the film.

I was very torn while watching this film. I love Boyer and Colbert, they are wonderful here as far as their acting goes. But the problem is the plot...and I mentioned that above. Caring about the communists or royals is a real chore for me....as both sides are very nasty pieces of work. And, it's odd that in the 1930s that apparently Americans were supposed to somehow care about royals...royals who in the 'good old days' killed serfs with complete impunity and watched them starve due to indifference. I normally never get political in my reviews...but it really is difficult to divorce yourself from history with a film like this.

Overall, this is a slick looking and well acted film about folks I just didn't care about at all. I do think my being an ex-history teacher made watching this much more difficult for me than the average person...most might not realize how truly awful and cruel the Russian royals actually were.

(1937) Tovarich COMEDY

Adapted from the play by Jacques Deval produced and directed by Anatole Litvak that has Grand Duchess, Tatiana Petrovna Romanov (Claudette Colbert) and her Prince, Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff (Charles Boyer) attempt to elude capture from the Russian Revolution, to prevent returning a large sum of money intended for the Russian cause. They escape to Paris where they pose as butler and maid employed by the Dupont family of Fermonde (Isabel Jeans) and her husband Charles (Melville Cooper) and their two children, Helene (Anita Louise) and Georges (Maurice Murphy). It is not the matter of who's going to discover them but a question of when. The title "Tovarich" as the movie is called is the Russian word for "comrade" or "friend". Basil Rathbone also stars as the Soviet commissar, Dimitri Gorotchenko.

Sometimes it is hard to enjoy a movie considering what's going on, both during the Stalin era and the Putin era.