Review - The Last Command (1928)

January 31, 2020

The Last Command – U.S., 1928

The first Academy Awards in 1928 were pretty good to Josef Von Sternberg. His film Underworld won Ben Hecht the first statue for Original Story, a category that was discontinued in 1956. Interestingly, the only other film in contention was The Last Command, also directed by Von Sternberg. Emil Jannings took home the first Best Actor award for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of the Flesh, from which sadly only about three and a half minutes of footage survive. (1928 was the only year in which nominees could win for multiple films.) And to top all that off, The Last Command, according to John Harkness’s The Academy Award Handbook at least, was nominated for Best Picture, so all in all, a rather successful year.

Underworld is a film about a gangster and his relationship with his girlfriend, Feathers, which starts him on a downward spiral involving jealousy and distrust. In The Last Command, Von Sternberg turned his lens toward the Soviet Union and told a story of post-revolution tragedy. It is not a film that looks at Czarist Russia with regret or longing for what had been lost, nor does it present the revolutionaries as complete saints or innocent victims of state repression. Instead, it looks at these times with an objective view. There were decent people on all sides; there were unscrupulous people on all sides. For every army general we see partying as soldiers are sent off to their deaths, there’s a revolutionary whose only motivation for revolution seems to be to be able to physically abuse and verbally mock those who benefited during the Czar’s rule. In fact, the only person truly depicted as thoroughly imbecilic is the Czar himself.

The film begins in 1928 Hollywood, but most of it takes place in 1917 and the waning days of Russia’s involvement in the First World War. In 1928, we learn that a Russian director has come to Hollywood to shoot a film for which droves of extras will be needed. In a stack of head shots, he comes across one of an older gentleman who claims he used to be a Grand Duke in the Russian Army. He is of course chosen to be in the film, but the look on the director’s face is not one of mere satisfaction at having cast the part; there’s something else in his eyes – a look of recognition, perhaps? Later, the old man will add a medal to his costume, a gift, he explains to his mocking co-workers, from the Czar himself. The remark is met with derision, yet soon the film flashes back to 1917, and we see the veracity of his story and the events that led to his fall from grace.

The flashbacks can be said to comprise of two parts. In the first, the Grand Duke meets and decides to woo a woman named Natalie, who may be a revolutionary. The Grand Duke seems to be judging her with his libido, making the assessment that a woman who is that attractive couldn’t possibly be an enemy. In his defense, Natalie is suspect is being part of the Resistance, not a spy for whom seduction and murder would be a requirement of the job. Still, she doesn’t give the Grand Duke much in the way of encouragement, which renders the Grand Duke a little foolish. Exactly which signs is he misreading?

In the second part of the film, the resistance makes their move, and the Grand Duke’s fate is decided. He will leave that part of the film the broken man we see in the opening scenes of the film. These scenes are emotional, frighteningly violent, and extremely well filmed. Their closest equivalents are the climaxes of Eisenstein’s Strike and The Battleship Potempkin. Von Sternberg captures the madness of the moment, the crowds thirst for blood, and the army’s lack of concern for civilian casualties. Von Sternberg shows the Grand Duke being practically stripped of his honor and manhood, while simultaneously giving us views into the revenge-crazy eyes of the crowd shouting for the death of anyone they view as sending their countrymen into a war that is not theirs. Von Sternberg shows both sides committing what would today be viewed as war crimes. I was blown away by these scenes.

If I have a complaint about the film, it is its unsatisfying portrayal of Natalie. This is a character who begins the film vowing that the days are numbered for those who are “dragging Russia down.” Clearly, this includes the Grand Duke, but after a few dinners, gifts, and a heartfelt patriotic comment, she’s portrayed as suddenly losing her resolve. Why? I thought it was just a pick-up line, one a woman like Natalie would clearly have seen right through, yet there she is a few scenes later looking starry-eyed and melting into the Grand Duke’s big arms as he utters one of the corniest and most problematic lines I’ve heard in some time: “From now on, you are my prisoner-of-war…and my prisoner-of-love.”

The Last Command features a stunning performance by Emil Jannings. In fact, I can’t think of a movie that Jannings is not astonishing in. Here, he starts the film out physically and emotionally broken, and he fully embodies this, from his slow pace, and shaking head to the loss apparent in his eyes. And yet watch him as he takes out a medal he was given by the Czar. Jannings doesn’t smile or stand upright in pride; doing so would put him at odds with the audience. Instead, the way he does it reveals its significance to him: It is his way of signaling that despite the toll his experiences have had on him, he has not been broken, and he is not ashamed. Also stellar in the film is Evelyn Brent as Natalie. While there are problems with the arc of the character, those are not reflected in her confident, emotional performance. In a way, she has the harder role of the two leads. She has to go from embracing violence to expressing appreciation and even love for the man who she formerly viewed as her enemy. And then there’s her turn toward the end. Look at her eyes. They pierce your soul and send you on a roller coaster of emotions. That she wasn’t nominated for Best Actress is a travesty.

The Last Command remains an unforgettable film. It contains commentary on Hollywood that is both humorous and enormously telling. Parts of it are filmed in a way that fully convey the luxury afforded to the ruling class (The Grand Duke is the Czar’s cousin.), while others bring to mind the chaos of war and revolution and remind us that often what defines heroes and villains is simply the viewpoint of the victor. Is the ending a bit too conventional? Perhaps, but it may not have been in 1928. Even now, it has the power to bring a tear to even the most hardened of moviegoers, and that says something. The Last Command is truly one for the ages. (on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Criterion’s 3 Silent Classics By Josef Von Sternberg)

4 and a half stars

*The Last Command is a silent film.

Review - Underground (1927)

January 18, 2020

Underworld – US, 1927

Josef von Sternberg’s cinematic career began with the film Underworld, a short, gritty look at the criminal world of the late 1920’s. This is a world that owed much of its existence to the colossal mistake that was Prohibition and which made celebrities out of ruthless gangsters such as Al Capone, which one Hollywood studio even entertained making a film with. (According to legend, they would have, too, had someone on the set that day not made a rather flippant remark about leaving his guns at the door.) Those gangsters, it was believed, were standing up to an oppressive government hell bent on imposing its outdated morals on a society whose only crime was that they had a thirst for alcohol, and so, it is not surprising to see the lead character in Underworld, Bull Weed (George Bancroft), portrayed in a rather pleasant light. Sure, he’s got anger issues and a slight tendency toward homicide, but other than that, he’s the kind of guy you’d have the time of your life with were you to share a booth with him at a bar or restaurant.

In fact, for much of the film, we get a pretty sanitized picture of Bull. He seems to commit robberies on his own, never appears to harm anyone in the process, and is even such a romantic fellow that he robs a jewelry store just so that he can get his hands on a necklace that his girlfriend formed in instant attachment with. I mean, if that isn’t love, what is? We also get a few scenes that reminded me of the dual nature of many of James Cagney’s gangsters. They were surely violent, but on any given day, they could have a heart of gold. In one scene which I seem to recall first seeing in a later Cagney film, Bull comes across a teenager trying to steal an apple from a fruit cart. Bull stops him cold and gives him a stern lecture on the evils of taking what isn’t yours. Then he smiles and eats the apple himself, completely aware of the contradiction. In another scene, his actions bring to mind a certain hero from Sherwood Forest, and then there’s his romantic side. When walking with his girlfriend, Feathers (Evelyn Brent), he remembers that a gentleman always walks on the side of the sidewalk closest to the traffic. At this point in the film, you’d be forgiven for thinking, What a swell guy!

Like von Sternberg does in later films with his muse Marlene Dietrich, here he creates a new and foreboding world down to the last detail. From the dark indistinct side streets to the well lit apartment he shares with Feathers, from the frequent shadows that loom large over figures in the foreground to the way von Sternberg immediately makes the audience aware of Feathers’s unique qualities and remarkable form, every detail contributes to the creation of a world in which love and brotherhood exist alongside rage and chaos. The film’s chief villain is Buck Mulligan, owner of a flower shop by day and ruthless gang leader by night, and the character provides both a contrast and a mirror to Bull. Early one, his quick temper and instant fury is juxtaposed with Bull’s calm, mocking mannerisms, and we can be forgiven for initially seeing them as polar opposites.

Interestingly, much of the film’s drama comes not from the rivalry between Bull and Buck, but from that of Bull and a former lawyer/current drunk nicknamed Rolls Royce (Clive Brook). In an early scene, a variation of which was repeated in the great Rio Bravo, Buck entices Rolls with a ten dollar bill, only to throw it in a spit bowl. His reaction is perfect. Even though he could surely use the money, he just picks up his broom and resumes sweeping the floor. Dignity supersedes financial need. The action perfectly establishes his character, and it provides the impetus for Feathers’s first inquisitive look. Sure, Bull would have done something similar, but he is in a much better financial position. Bull does it out of principle, and that means just a little bit more to her. And thus the flirtation begins.

I wish the film had spent more time developing the connection between Feathers and Rolls Royce. It seemed to me that more was needed that a scene in which she exposes her shoulder and he grins like a freshman seeing flesh for the first time, but in truth movies have rarely been good at establishing bonds that go beyond mutual physical attraction. Perhaps this is why ones that do, such as Before Sunrise, It Happened One Night, and Casablanca, resonate as much as they do. We appreciate a film that takes the time to make a relationship understandable. We root for these couples; we simply tolerate the rest. Alas, the romance in Underworld is a case of the latter, and the film is marginally weaker as a result.

Still, the film impresses and resonates, and its impact on the genre is plain to see. In the film, we see the beginnings of Hollywood’s love-hate relationship with gangsters, the need to make them both personally likeable and professionally despicable. One need look no further than The Sopranos for proof that that dilemma continues to dominate the gangster genre, and while Underworld does not end with the protagonist having been exposed as a failure for not having preserved his morals or protected his family from the hazards of his career choice, it does end in a way that will remind viewers of other films from Hollywood’s early years, ones in which a gangster is never truly without honorable attributes. He just has to find something more valuable than his own life. Once Underground get going, there’s little doubt just what that will be, but what a ride getting there, and what incredible performances. Underground is the kind of film that you marvel at, knowing full well that you are witnessing the arrival of a true master of cinema. (on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Criterion’s box set 3 Silent Classics By Josef von Sternberg, now thankfully back in print)

3 and a half stars

*Underworld is a silent film.

*Writer Ben Hecht won an Oscar for his screenplay at the first Academy Awards.