Alvorada Rubra

Scarlet Dawn casts Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as a Russian baron rudely displaced by the forces of the Russian Revolution and now has to fend for himself in a world not terribly hospitable to former aristocrats. He's also not terribly suited for any kind of real work.

Doug might have been caught by the Reds but for the fact that his former servant Nancy Carroll didn't give him away. Nancy's got a big old crush on Doug and they do marry once arriving in exile in Istanbul which throughout the film is referred to by its former Christian name of Constantinople. They marry and settle down with Doug now reduced to washing dishes.

But Fairbanks's former mistress Lilyan Tashman who's always playing bad girls of a sort on film spots him and offers to have him get back into somewhat the style he was once accustomed to as part of a swindle against father and daughter American tourists Guy Kibbee and Sheila Terry.

Good thing this film has the incredibly short running time of only 57 minutes, usually those were given to B westerns because it's both tedious and melodramatic. The ending is rather unbelievable. Doug knew he was in a Thanksgiving special and really overacts to cover up the defects of a unbelievable story.

What I didn't understand was that Fairbanks was trained in the military profession, why didn't he just become a mercenary soldier after leaving the new Soviet Union? That didn't make sense to me at all.

I'd only see this if I was a dedicated fan of any the main players.

While I don't understand how in 1932 a movie could be made sympathizing with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, I do understand that Scarlet Dawn is a pre-Code film. Like most movies made between 1928 and 1934 (six of the best years in moviemaking, if you ask me), the lighting, sets, and photography are flawless. The print that is on video has perfect sound and picture quality. The costumes are delightfully ornate. Doug Jr. as Nikita Krasnoff is perfect, probably because he was the only actor on the Warners lot in 1932 with enough sex appeal to get away with what he got away with in the movie (i.e. sexual harassment). Nancy Carroll is his faithful servant and, later on in the film, wife. Lilyan Tashman plays a gossipy, scheming, glamour-gal mistress. While Lil and Nan sort of steal the show, their talents are slightly wasted. It's Doug who really captivates throughout, and considering how absolutely luscious he looks, the already short movie (just under an hour) flies by effortlessly. Scarlet Dawn is underrated, but extremely interesting, and the vintage 1917 war footage is a cute touch.

This is a typical Russian Revolution film, with all the chaos, the dreadful muddle, the constant introduction of new characters and their sudden disappearance, the reckless atrocities galore, the helpless people being most of them martyred and lost in anonymity in the whirling mass movements and the unfathomable pathos. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is a Russian aristocrat in the army who quickly has to change sides when the revolution comes and manages to escape all the way to Constantinople with a former servant girl, whom he marries, but other old female friends and mistresses turn up in Constantinople offering an alternative life, which he sacrifices for his love, and so on - there is no end to intrigues and adventures here, but they all crowd upon each other, leaving no space to breathe. The film is compressed into only 57 minutes while the original was twenty minutes longer, but it was still the pre-Code period, so those twenty minutes were probably cut away when the Code was established like a devastating censure for so many films. What strikes you here is the extremely competent direction by William Dieterle, the virtuoso acting by everyone (even Misha Auer turns up in a small part), the splendid camera work as early as 1932 and the impressing cinematography, accompanied by music that could fit Doctor Zhivago by Milan Roder, totally unknown and forgotten today. In brief, this is a gem of the early thirties not to be brushed aside but rather to be advanced and elevated in spite of its brevity to the rank of other classics of the same kind, like Sternberg's "The Last Command" and "Shanghai Express", Raoul Walsh's "The Yellow Ticket", Michael Curtiz' "British Agent", Jacques Feyder's "Knight Without Armour" and other heroic efforts to put the Russian revolution on screen, which all must be insufficient but which all at least give some impression of what that great human disaster for all civilization was all about.

To be able to tell a story so eventful in less an hour is in itself a feat and William Dieterlé can't be praised too highly just for that .There are so many characters that sometimes the viewer does not know anymore who is who :even czar Nicholas appears in the flesh at the beginning.Never a dull moment;the Russian revolution only takes two scenes : the railway station where the hero is (fortunately) late and the panic in the streets .There's also a scene in his castle which the revolutionaries plunder : Jacques Feyder would copy it in his own "knight without armor" (1937);in that movie ,Marlene Dietrich is the noble one whereas her co-star Robert Donat is a plebeian.

Dieterle's taste for melodrama comes to the fore in the second part which takes place in Turkey. The connection between the scenes is sometimes thin and leaves the best till last.If this movie were remade,the ending would certainly be modified today.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. stars with Nancy Carroll and Lilyan Tashman in "Scarlet Dawn," a precode film from 1932.

Fairbanks plays a Russian baron, Nikita, who finds himself caught in the Russian Revolution, where he becomes one of the common people and realizes that he has no skills and needs a job.

He's nearly caught but after lying to the Reds, they take him to be identified and ask a servant, Tanyusha (Nancy Carroll) where he was staying about him. She plays along that he's not a baron, and he's released.

Nikita takes off for Istanbul (called by its old name here, Constantinople), and she follows. They marry; he gets a job washing dishes, and she gets one scrubbing floors.

The restaurant boss gives him a chance as busboy, he encounters an old love Vera (Lilyan Tashman) at the table. She waits for him outside and encourages him to go to Paris with her, where they can swindle a man and his daughter and enjoy some semblance of their old life.

Nikita agrees to go and tells Tanyusha that he will be sending her money and will return.

This film runs slightly under an hour, uses footage from the real Revolution or old Russia, I guess, and has that old trick of the paper showing headlines in Russian and then fading to English. Cracked me up.

For me the only good thing was Fairbanks, whom I love, and who always managed to hand in a performance that stands the test of time. He's handsome and sexy here, despite his sexual harassment of Tanyusha before they marry.

I'd say skip it.