Emil Jannings delivers a powerful performance while Josef Von Sternberg sums up the Bolshie's past and present a decade after the Russian Revolution in The Last Command. Far fetched at times it is filled with the rich imagery that informed the work of Von Sternberg in his prime while at Paramount.
Former Imperialist Russian general under the czar Dolgorucki (Jannings) finds himself living in Hollywood making some meager money as an extra. Former revolutionary, now pampered tinsel town director Lev Andreyev (William Powell) sees his head shot and finds him a perfect fit to play what he once was. At a rambunctious casting call for extras the former general pulls out a decoration and reminisces in flashback of social upheaval and lost love.
Jannings is simply outstanding as he transitions from his powerful position in Russia to a man with severe PTSD barely scraping by in LA. Conveying a tower of strength and authority in uniform with a dash of sex appeal to his dissolution as a nameless extra his performance never wavers or goes over the top in other noted performances as he had in The Last Laugh and would again in The Blue Angel. Evelyn Brent as a Red and love interest holds her own with Jannings even if the script pushing her conversion from cause to love does ring a little hollow. Their parting however is one of the most stunning in silent film history.
Von Sternberg does not mince words about communists, he portrays them for the most part as drunken rioters bent on revenge. He also predates Joe McCarthy's Reds in Hollywood expose by twenty years with the firmly entrenched Andreyev holding court. Additionally he does a fine job of comparing the chaos of revolution with that of a Hollywood cattle call enabling Jannings to react and stretch across a spectrum of emotions in two dehumanizing environments.
While the hook-up of polar opposites pushes plausibility and the finale tends to mawkishness the artistry of actor and director carry the day.
Former Imperialist Russian general under the czar Dolgorucki (Jannings) finds himself living in Hollywood making some meager money as an extra. Former revolutionary, now pampered tinsel town director Lev Andreyev (William Powell) sees his head shot and finds him a perfect fit to play what he once was. At a rambunctious casting call for extras the former general pulls out a decoration and reminisces in flashback of social upheaval and lost love.
Jannings is simply outstanding as he transitions from his powerful position in Russia to a man with severe PTSD barely scraping by in LA. Conveying a tower of strength and authority in uniform with a dash of sex appeal to his dissolution as a nameless extra his performance never wavers or goes over the top in other noted performances as he had in The Last Laugh and would again in The Blue Angel. Evelyn Brent as a Red and love interest holds her own with Jannings even if the script pushing her conversion from cause to love does ring a little hollow. Their parting however is one of the most stunning in silent film history.
Von Sternberg does not mince words about communists, he portrays them for the most part as drunken rioters bent on revenge. He also predates Joe McCarthy's Reds in Hollywood expose by twenty years with the firmly entrenched Andreyev holding court. Additionally he does a fine job of comparing the chaos of revolution with that of a Hollywood cattle call enabling Jannings to react and stretch across a spectrum of emotions in two dehumanizing environments.
While the hook-up of polar opposites pushes plausibility and the finale tends to mawkishness the artistry of actor and director carry the day.