Le chevalier sans armure

In "Knight Without Armour" (***) Robert Donat plays a British journalist in 1914 revolutionary Russia who is persuaded by his government to go undercover as a "red." The catch is that if he's caught the British home office will disavow any knowledge of him. He is caught and spends two years in Siberia before the death of Czar Nicholas and the fall of the Russian nobility free him. He then becomes the right hand man for an influential revolutionary commissar. Needless to say, his heart isn't really in it and when he gets an opportunity to escort a rich and pampered Russian countess back to headquarters in Petrograd for questioning he decides to help them both escape from the country. They are then tossed about like footballs from one side to the other. The plot is really rather ingenious, although you get the impression that the filmaker's hearts are more on the side of the corrupt "white" establishment if for no other reason that it never misses an occasion for glamorous star close-ups of Marlene D. in extravagantly opulent costumes. Even a young red official is so smitten with her he sacrifices himself in order to save her and Donat from one nasty predicament. I suppose the film wanted to avoid appearing to be too pro-communist, but in the process it comes down a little too much on the side of "noblesse oblige." The film ends a bit abruptly with Donat and Dietrich seemingly a long way from being out of the woods yet, but all-in-all it's beautifully produced and holds the interest pretty much all the way through. Good scene: Dietrich awakening one morning alone in her palace to discover that her entire household of servants has fled. If you can find a good print of this unusual oldie, it's worth seeing.

That was Jacques Feyder's only English movie.He had just done his major works " Le Grand Jeu" "Pension mimosas" and "La Kermesse Heroique" and "Knight without armour" in spite of obvious qualities cannot compare with them.

This is a tormented love story between a commissar (Donat) and a Russian countess of the old Russian aristocracy (Dietrich)who try to get to the border .The plot sometimes recalls a "Doctor Zhivago" in miniature.

Best scenes ,in my opinion,are to be found in the first part: Dietrich,walking across her desirable mansion,all dressed in white ,finding that her staff has left home and joined the revolution;the same,facing a sinister-looking pack of Reds in her park.

The mad station master,ceaselessly repeating that a train is coming into the station (madness was also present in Feyder's former works :"Le Grand jeu "was a good example of folie à deux )

Knight Without Armour finds Robert Donat as a British agent, fluent in Russian, sent to spy on the revolutionary movement even before World War I started. Such things were done I'm sure as farsighted folks in the Foreign Office probably saw Europe headed for general war and Russia would have been the United Kingdom's ally in that case.

Donat plays his part all too well, he's captured as a revolutionary and sent to Siberia and spends most of World War I there. Whatever else it does it certainly helps his cover. The original revolution that brought Kerensky to power frees the political prisoners and Donat now has to try and make his way home.

In a parallel story aristocrat Marlene Dietrich gets the shock of her life when one day she wakes up and her servants have fled because the Russian Revolution has come to town. From hero{ine} to zero overnight, she's got to get out of a country that's now shooting her kind on general principles.

They become allies of convenience and of course the shared experience of escape forges a romance as well. Both turn out to be pretty clever at taking advantages of breaks as they are captured a couple of times during the film.

Robert Donat was one of the few of her leading men to not fall under Dietrich's amorous sway. But they became good friends and according to a recent biography of Marlene, Dietrich helped Donat with a special breathing technique she learned about to help control his asthma. Donat suffered from asthma all his life and it eventually killed him.

The film is based on a lesser known work of British novelist James Hilton who also wrote Random Harvest and Lost Horrizon and of course Goodbye Mr. Chips for which Donat won his Academy Award for. It seems as though Hilton wrote his books with either Robert Donat or Ronald Colman in mind for the screen, they played his heroes so well.

On screen Knight Without Armour suits the images and talents of Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich well and fans of both will appreciate it.

Robert Donat speaks Russian, so he gets sent to Russia by the British Government to spy on the growing communist movement. When they take over, he's on his own resources, and Aristocratic Marlene Dietrich to take care of, as they try to get to safety.

It's not a particularly original script, but the handling suggests that director Jacques Feyder and cameraman Harry Stradling had seen both the MGM A TALE OF TWO CITIES and THE SCARLET EMPRESS; there are plenty of touches that suggest both. Add in two performers acting a a hot storm, and a lovely small turn by John Clements as a sentimental Bolshevik, and you have a movie that perhaps should have done better. I suppose the problem was that Alexander Korda overspent on it, and it shows in occasional bloat.

As usual, seeing this film via TCM or Turner Classic Movies was a most enjoyable experience. The subtext of "Knight ..." is that every known revolution is an entirely messy affair. Entirely.

The story is told in a rather straight-forward fashion and for most fans it will only augment their affection for, or resentment against, the female lead -- Marlene Dietrich. Like certain other stars of the cinema in the 1930s, she is always really just Marlene, take it or leave it alone. It works well in this mad adventure of a Russian Countess who awakes one morning to discover her world has crumbled.

The scene where she is confronted by a mob of revolutionaries, on her own beautifully manicured lawn, and without so much as one member of her staff there to speak up for her, is amazingly effective. It works and it works well in a fairly understated and yet unambiguous way.

Robert Donat, always one of my personal favorites, does yeoman's work.

He's the British secret agent who speaks Russian like a native and is clever enough to adapt to almost any situation. He is brilliant in this role ( and it is understood after the fact that Dietrich insisted that he not be replaced when he suffered a bad asthma attack as the production was just getting under way ).

All these decades later, those of us who are not so conversant with the historical basis of the Russian Revolution will probably be shocked by the casual slaughters that both the Reds, and the Whites indulged in.

There's much to recommend in this fine film and the Russian music that gets salted in here and there is tremendously emotional and workable.

Flat out, I really liked this rickety old movie and I could have used another fifteen minutes of Dietrich and Donat, no problem !! Eight of ten stars for the intrigue and this beguiling romance.