Volga in fiamme

A slightly bizarre film about a quasi-Russian revolution with a deal of quick-moving action, unsubtle politics and revolutionary unpleasantness.

The opening snowy scenes set us off to a dramatic start. The impressive figure of Silatschoff (Valéry Inkijinoff) is revealed freezing in the snow, and is saved by Orloff (Albert Préjean), which turns out to be a wise move.

Meanwhile in a military fortress, villain Schalin (Raymond Rouleau) can't take no for an answer from the colonel's daughter Macha (Danielle Darrieux). He touches her inappropriately on a toboggan but she assertively crashes it and climbs back up the hill for a ride with the better-looking if pint-sized Orloff.

An insurrectionist who looks like Gollum is caught. But revolutionary proclamations, shootings, hangings and a lot of running around mean that this particular tsarist outpost is in trouble.

The other bandits, who also turn out to be ugly as pantomime pirates, pour petrol into the Volga, preventing Orloff from proposing to Macha.

The tsarist soldiers drag canons through the mud singing the Volga Boat Song but it does them no good.

As can be the way of these things the relationship between the revolutionary would-be tsar Silatschoff and his woman Olga (Nathalie Kovanko) is a lot more interesting than the toboggan-rooted one of woodenly honourable Orloff and Macha, who spends a lot of the time in a faint.

Still, the film is of interest as one of Darrieux's earliest, is given a bit more substance by Inkijinoff and Kovanko, and has clunky moments of atmosphere.

A permanent feature of the French cinema of the thirties (particularly the first half) is a Russian story.Most of the time,it was a chocolate box country :we knew it was Russia cause they paid in roubles.

Victor Tourjansky was himself a Russian director.The Revolution drove him away from his land and he used to work in France in the thirties."Volga en Flammes" was the first of three "Russian" movies which build some kind of trilogy;for the record,the others are "Les Yeux Noirs" and "Le Mensonge de Nina Petrowna " .

Unlike his French colleagues (Lherbier:"La TRagédie Impériale" ;Dréville:"les Nuits Blanches de Saint-Petersburg" ) the director knows ,and for a good reason,how to recreate a Russian atmosphere ,with the songs,the settings and the impressive scene where the characters are lost in the snow.

But it's difficult to believe Albert Préjean(!!) and Danielle Darrieux are Slavs!Raymond Rouleau was even less lucky:to portray the villain,he was made up as a "cosack" .Only Valery Inkijinoff is convincing (and again for a good reason) but his character (a man who wants to overthrow the czar )is cardboard.Although short,the movie is labored ,and the musical sequences,although fine,are mostly filler.

We feel a certain nostalgia for czarism.