Knight Without Armour

United Kingdom

1937

107 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

English, Russian

Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

SCR James Hilton, Frances Marion, Lajos Biró, Arthur Wimperis

CAST Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, Irene Vanbrugh, Herbert Lomas, Austin Trevor, Basil Gill, David Tree, John Clements, Frederick Culley, Laurence Hanray, Dorice Fordred, Franklin Kelsey, Laurence Baskcomb, Hay Petrie, Miles Malleson, Allan Jeayes, Lyn Harding, Raymond Huntley

Englishman A.J. Fothergill (Robert Donat) is recruited by Colonel Forrester (Laurence Hanray) to spy on Russia for the British government because he can speak the language fluently. As “Peter Ouranoff”, he infiltrates a revolutionary group led by Axelstein (Basil Gill). The radicals try to blow up General Gregor Vladinoff (Herbert Lomas), the father of Alexandra (Marlene Dietrich). When the attempt fails, the would-be assassin is shot, but manages to reach Peter’s apartment, where he dies. For his inadvertent involvement, Peter is sent to Siberia.

World War I makes Alexandra a widow and brings the Bolsheviks to power, freeing Peter and Axelstein. When the Russian Civil War breaks out, Alexandra is arrested for being an aristocrat, and Peter is assigned by now-Commissar Axelstein to take her to Petrograd to stand trial. However, Peter instead takes her to the safety of the White Army. Their relief is short-lived; the Red Army defeats the White the next day and Alexandra is taken captive once more. Peter steals a commission as a commissar of prisons from a drunk and uses the document to free her. The two, now deeply in love, flee into the forest. Later, they catch a train.

At a railway station, the countess is identified by one Communist official, but another, Poushkoff (John Clements), is entranced by Alexandra’s beauty. Insisting that her identity be verified, he arranges to take her and Fothergill to Samara. Along the way, they become good friends. He then allows the couple to escape at a stop, committing suicide to provide a diversion.

The lovers board a barge traveling down the Volga River. Alexandra becomes seriously ill. When Peter goes for a doctor, he is arrested by the Whites for not having papers. Meanwhile, a Red Cross doctor finds Alexandra and takes her for treatment. About to be executed, Peter makes a break for it and catches the Red Cross train transporting Alexandra out of Russia. —Wikipedia

Director

Jacques Feyder

French Filmmaker Jacques Feyder is one of the founders of poetic realism in French cinema. Feyder came from a bourgeois family with a strong military tradition, but after flunking the entrance exams to officers school, Feyder began working in a canon foundry. Upon learning that his son really aspired to becoming an actor, Feyder’s father forbade him to use the family name on stage. Feyder went to Paris in 1911 where he played many small roles on stage and in film before becoming interested in filmmaking. Just before World War I, he began assisting director Gaston Ravel. As most of the regular directors were called to serve in the war, Feyder was assigned to direct. He began with nondescript little comedies, but in 1917, soon after he married famed actress Francoise Rosay, he was inducted into the Belgian army where he worked as an actor in a military troupe. He did not return to filmmaking until 1919. Over the next two decades, Feyder’s reputation as a filmmaker extraordinaire grew… read more