Josef von Sternberg / 1928 / US / 88 mins

Available on dual-format DVD/ Blu-Ray from Mon 16 May 2016

Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. Is this what has prompted the release of The Last Command? This is a fascinating silent movie for which the lead, Emile Jannings, won the very first Academy Award for best actor.

This was von Sternberg’s second major Hollywood movie and it’s a glorious romp with touches of satire, irony, tragedy and betrayal. It could be said to be the last of the great silent movies – it certainly was for Jannings whose gloopy German accent proved too impenetrable for the talkies. Von Sternberg was the great German expressionist (the movement was hugely influential in Hollywood and helped turn its output from nickelodeon to sublime artform, especially in 1940s’ film noir). The director had a long association with Marlene Dietrich and turned her into a vision of depraved hauteur. His Blue Angel made her an icon.

The Last Command is set in revolutionary Russia and was made only 10 years after the event. Jannings plays a cousin of the Tsar who is also the puffed-up, arrogant commander general of the army whose world is about to crumble. It’s all moustaches, glinting epaulettes, moodily curling cigarette smoke, and sidelong glances that border on the camp; but this is fine movie-making – a harbinger of what was to come in terms of realistic sets and moving cameras. Von Sternberg was obsessed with composition and lighting and the cinematographer (Bert Glennon) does him proud. The movie offers lots of layers. Von Sternberg’s sound pictures are far more interesting than his silent movies but The Last Command stands up well (the screenplay was co-written by the legendary Herman Mankiewicz).

Although the inter-titles and cinema organ music take a bit of getting used to, the movie is pioneering work. With over-exaggerated interiors and lavish set pieces – such as when the Tsar comes to inspect the bedraggled troops – it’s as if von Sternberg almost invented modern Hollywood.

The story is told in flashback. It opens with the exiled, shell-shocked post-revolution general now reduced to playing bit parts in Hollywood movies (this is not so far-fetched: Rasputin’s assassin sued MGM in 1934). The general’s downfall is first accelerated when he takes a fancy to a young fur-trimmed ‘revolutionist’ (Evelyn Brent) who infiltrates his camp. The general and his cronies believe that losing the war will be the ruination of Russia but it’s a war on two fronts – Germany and the Bolsheviks. The old order can’t possibly win and history tells us that the White Russians will be humiliated, exiled or murdered. The subsequent history of Russia is indeed one of humiliation and the film captures this. The once-swaggering general is shamed and humiliated at every turn first by the revolutionary rabble and later by the sadistic, bullying film director played by William Powell (a von Sternberg self-portrait).