A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It's a sprawling and exciting story of the Russian revolution and its aftermath. As I understand it -- the Tsar of Russia in the early 20th century was kind of inept and distant from the people. The peasants were illiterate and poor, while the aristocrats, including Countess Marlene Dietrich, were living it up -- eating cake, as it were. A few bombs get thrown and poor Robert Donat is mistaken for a revolutionary and winds up in Siberia for two years.While he's in the deep freeze, Russia enters World War I in 1914 which precipitates a full-scale revolution, the one we're most familiar with, led by Lenin and Trotsky and the rest. In the celebratory atmosphere of the revolution's success, the prisoners in Siberia are released.Donat has become friends with one of the imprisoned heroes of the revolution and is appointed commissar. It sounds better than it is. As happens with most ideological paradigm shifts, a civil war follows. You have the Red Russians fighting the White Russians, instead of sitting down and resolving their differences over Black Russians.The Reds and Whites aren't wines but they may be the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, respectively, but I don't swear to it because the film itself never truly makes all this clear, and my expertise in Russian studies is limited to a memory of a psychology professor once telling me that the only word he could remember in Russian was kapusta, which means cabbage, and he could only do that because mentally the phonological contours of the word "kapusta" conjured up visions of a head of cabbage. Vladimir Nabokov had left the faculty shortly before or I would have taken his course though it wouldn't have helped in understanding the Russians any better. Later I had many Russian students myself in New Jersey and I tried to learn some of the language but never got much past "pelmeni." In any case, Donat's Siberian friend is a hero of the White Russians. The opposing Reds are rougher customers, it seems. They execute hordes of suspect prisoners with machine guns. But we shortly find that the White Reds are equally tough on prisoners. It's a familiar pattern. Once the new dictatorship takes over they kill everyone associated with the old order. Sometimes the aftermath of the revolution is as bloody as the period preceding it. There was Robespierre and the Reign of Terror after the French revolution. Fidel Castro worked his execution list down to the mailmen who had delivered letters for the dictator Batista.I'll make this short. Donat meets Dietrich and they warm to one another. Dietrich, an aristo, is supposed to be executed but Donat spirits her away and after a long, arduous, painful journey by rail and through sphagnum-floored forests, the finally wind up aboard a hospital train to Bucharest and freedom.I noticed that the director, von Sternberg, does his usual job of turning Dietrich into a mysterious angel. But his lighting is dramatic for everyone involved, and his direction otherwise has its little felicities. At tense moments he tilts the camera delicately adding an unnerving quality to the scene.Marlene Dietrich is usually thought of as a no-nonsense down-to-earth sort of babe. Ernest Hemingway liked her a lot for that reason and affectionately referred to her as "the Kraut." Here she's soft and vulnerable, not sexy and vulgar as in "Der Blaue Engel" and not domineering and treacherous, as in "Witness For The Prosecution." Of course she never appears without precisely applied makeup. Donat comes across as a nice guy, innocent but smart and courageous. He was to die at fifty-three of status asthmaticus, a condition in which you can breathe in but not out, a crummy way to go.The film really was something of a surprise. It's very well crafted from the point of view of art direction. It's mostly studio bound, but the forest that Donat and Dietrich struggle through is far better done than any other studio forest I can remember seeing. And in its movement and conflict it reminds me of -- well, of "Dr. Zhivago," without the colorful spangles. It's well worth catching.

Some of my favorite films of the 1930s and 40s were based on James Hilton novels, so when I saw that "Knight Without Armor" was based on one of his books, I was thrilled. After all, he was responsible for such wonderful films as "Lost Horizon", "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and "Random Harvest" (though this last one IS quite a bit different from his book). Then, when I saw the wonderful actor Robert Donat starred in it, I knew I had to see it! The movie begins with Donat agreeing to spy for the British on the Revolutionary rumbles within Russia just before the World War I began. However, soon his cover is blown and he is arrested and sent to Siberia! Several years pass in a prison camp until he ultimately is liberated by the Communists---during the height of the Revolution in 1917.Eventually Donat meets up with the Countess (Marlene Dietrich) who is determined to make her way to safety out of the new Soviet Union. Much of the film is spent with the two of them sneaking across this huge country towards freedom and it comes off a bit like "It Happened One Night"--just without all the comedy (comedy was, understandably, not something the Revolution was known for, by the way). And, like Gable and Colbert, romance soon blossoms. But the way out is treacherous and you'll just have to tune in yourself to see how it all unfolds.As usual, Donat is very good--believable and not especially 'flashy'. As for Dietrich, I am not a huge fan of her films, but she's very good here as she ditches her usual glamorous image and it suits her. Now if only she had non-penciled in eyebrows, she's have been terrific! They just looked odd AND hiding among the peasantry wasn't very believable with the fashionable but creepy plucked brows. The direction was very nice--with a soft touch and lots of excellent touches. It was a very nice looking film from start to finish--with a rather brutal scene near the end involving a firing squad.By the way, I think tonight was the first time Turner Classic Movies showed this rare film. However, I noticed that the film seemed to play at a slightly slower speed than it should. The sound seemed okay, but the actors moved at a noticeably slower than normal pace. I am not sure how this happened, as all sound films run at 24 frames per second and don't vary like a silent film (which runs anywhere from 16-22 fps). Isn't there some way this can be corrected?!

I would see this movie again and again just to look at Robert Donat and hear that lovely voice of his, although I must agree that Marlene Dietrich isn't bad either. She manages to get herself into some stunning gowns and looks none the worse for being overthrown by a group of bitter peasants. (That's always the problem with her movies.) Knight Without Armor is a wonderful film of its era, full of charm and with some unexpected allusions to what we must assume (in fact, know) was a very successful sexual encounter in a scene just dripping with double entendre. The film is an interesting and more or less ambiguous view of the Russian Revolution. The chemistry between the two actors works very well--and Donat truly is a knight without armor. It's a shame that he was in so few films--he was such a remarkable and beautiful presence on the screen.

Although the plot may seem thin I consider it a very absorbing film - lots of drama and action. It is a movie of its time so modern expectations are out of place. Marlene Dietrich shines in this one of course but I view it because Robert Donat is there also. It's my opinion that their screen kiss is one of the finest on record, very touching and tender. All in all, well worth the popcorn!