Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
31	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	1	2	3	4

The Last Command (1928) [The Criterion Collection #530]

Posted By: Notsaint

Date: 9 Aug 2013 20:48:10

Emil Jannings won the first best actor Academy Award for his performance as a sympathetic tyrant: an exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra who lands a role playing a version of his former czarist self, bringing about his emotional downfall.

Director: Josef von Sternberg
Cast: Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell, Jack Raymond, Nicholas Soussanin, Michael Visaroff, Fritz Feld, Harry Cording, Shep Houghton, Alexander Ikonnikov, Nicholas Kobliansky, Guy Oliver, Viatseslav Savitsky, Harry Semels

DVDBeaver

The Criterion Collection

Emil Jannings won the first best actor Academy Award for his performance as a sympathetic tyrant: an exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra who lands a role playing a version of his former czarist self, bringing about his emotional downfall. Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command is a brilliantly realized silent melodrama and a witty send-up of the Hollywood machine, featuring virtuoso cinematography, grandly designed sets and effects, and rousing Russian Revolution sequences. Towering above all is the passionate, heartbreaking Jannings, whose portrayal of a man losing his grip on reality is one for the history books.

DVDTalk

1928's The Last Command gives von Sternberg the kind of story he seemed to like best, a costume tale with a European setting that allows him to indulge his penchant for exotic visuals. His co-written story is less a narrative than a character study. Autocratic film director Lev Andreyev (a young, dour William Powell) was once a Russian revolutionary. Now he's making a movie about the final days of Czarist rule and needs a convincing Russian General for a battle scene. Lev finds his man in the former Grand Duke Sergius Alexander (German star Emil Jannings), who has been reduced to working as a Hollywood extra. Somewhat confused and brain-addled, the thoroughly humiliated Sergius is harassed by the other extras when he claims to have been a real general. But the feel of the General's costume cues Sergius to remember his last days in command and his infatuation with Natalie Dabrova, an actress / revolutionary spy (Evelyn Brent). When the October insurrection seized his army train, Sergius survived the wrath of the mob due to Natalie's intervention. Lev remembers Natalie as well, and now that their fortunes have reversed Lev can't wait to exert his power over his former captor. But what will the unbalanced Sergius do when he gets on the film set, representing a snowbound trench on the Eastern Front?

The Last Command is a study in ironic contrast. In Russia Sergius was waited on hand & foot and had entire divisions of soldiers at his disposal; his biggest problem seemed to be dealing with Czar Nicholas's interference. Now an insignificant extra in the enormous Hollywood movie machine, Sergius is at the receiving end of another bizarre power system. Sergius is pushed and shoved amid a mob of eager extras following orders and crowding to get their costumes. The other younger Russian expatriates playing extras pay him no mind, and a dismissive assistant director ignores his corrections about his costume because "Hollywood has been making these things for years".

The Last Command is really a showcase platform for the undeniably powerful Emil Jannings. Von Sternberg has the actor hold back his full power, reserving him like a big gun for the finish. Fired up by the director, given a Russian flag and placed at the head of a line of soldiers, Sergius seems to swell in size and strength in a matter of seconds. Asked to spur his men into battle, the old patriot rallies one more eloquent blast of inspirational orders. It's quite a display, a bravura actorly transformation.

In the late 1920s the events of the Russian Revolution were barely a decade old – closer than the 9/11 attack is to us now. The film takes a typically pro- White Russian attitude. The Czar may be a meddling fool but the revolutionaries are depicted as an opportunistic, unprincipled rabble. When a trainload of rebels crashes into an icy river (a pretty weak model), were not supposed to miss them terribly. Lev and Natalie are characterized as sneaky manipulators, plotting the revolt. Only Natalie begins to respect Sergius when she sees how much he loves his country. She uses her theatrical skill to free him, but her commitment is nothing next to Sergius' blue-blooded patriotism.

The Last Command allows Von Sternberg to exercise his visual skills to the hilt. He trucks his camera past a line of windows where shoes and belts are doled out to what seems an endless crush of studio extras. The crowded rebel train rushes to its destiny with the exhausted and bloodied Sergius forced to stoke the furnace. Only a couple of hours before this the general was luxuriating in his privileges. Evelyn Brent, dressed in fashionable furs yet showing a pair of sexy knees above her fur boots, seems like a study in sexy cool for one of Marlene Dietrich's later movies. Sets are bathed in smoke, while Bert Glennon's camera caresses the contrasting textures of uniforms, fur, and cold steel.

The disc extras tell us that Emil Jannings retreated to Germany almost immediately, knowing that he wouldn't be able to continue in Hollywood once all-talkies took hold. The director would collaborate with Jannings again on the German made classic The Blue Angel, the film that for most 'civilians' is Von Sternberg's first.

Josef vonSternberg's The Last Command was inspired by the true story of General Lodijenski, a Russian aristocrat who arrived penniless in the US after the 1917 Revolution and who supported himself by playing movie bit parts and managing a Russian restaurant. Emil Jannings stars as the Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, who in the last days of the Romanoff regime must decide the fate of two revolutionist actors, Leo Andreyev (William Powell) and the gorgeous Natacha (Evelyn Brent). Andreyev is carted off to prison, while Natacha becomes the Duke's mistress. She fully intends to kill him, but when the chance arises, she hesitates, having come to realize that the Duke is an essentially decent man who loves Russia as much as she does. Comes the revolution, and Natacha helps the Grand Duke escape the Bolsheviks, losing her own life in the process. The death of Natacha sends Sergius Alexander into a nervous shock, from which he never fully recovers. Years later, a shabby Sergius is eking out an existence as a Hollywood extra. Hired to play a Russian general in a crowd scene, Sergius discovers that his director is none other than former Russian revolutionary Leo Andreyev. The meaning of the title is clarified in the film's emotional climax. Plot inconsistencies aside, The Last Command is a stunning cinematic achievement, combining the harsh realities of Russia and Hollywood with vonSternberg's unerring sense of visual beauty.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide