The Last Command (1928)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Last Command (1928) – J. von Sternberg

Emil Jannings won the first Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of a Russian general who lost his position during the Revolution and wound up as an extra in Hollywood. As directed by (pre-Dietrich) Josef von Sternberg, it’s structured as a first introduction to the character (and the Hollywood studio assembly line) and then a long meaty flashback in Russia, and finally a coda that returns us to Hollywood where the actor is given a final scene in a movie about Russian troops in WWI (still led by the Czar) and a final chance to recapture his dignity. Ironically, the director of the film (played by a young William Powell, who seems wrong without his voice in the Silent era) was one of the revolutionaries harassed by the General in the old days (alongside Evelyn Brent who became the General’s love interest despite her revolutionary goals) – even those in favour of regime change could see the General’s love for his country and its people.  As staged by von Sternberg, the Russian scenes are full of extras and action but somehow the film never quite scales the heights of other masterworks of the era (I prefer Jannings in Murnau’s The Last Laugh, 1924). Von Sternberg would have his heyday in the 1930s with Marlene.

The Wind (1928)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Wind (1928) – V. Sjöström

Lillian Gish is a naïve Virginia girl who moves west to stay with her cousin’s family, no doubt dreaming of a better life – but instead she discovers howling winds and a jealous wife who is anxious to get rid of her as soon as she arrives.  A charming businessman seems the perfect suitor to take her away from this plight – but he turns out to be married and a creep on the make.  So, she ends up with a cowhand who she doesn’t love and becomes increasingly distraught, spending her days alone with that howling wind.  In fact, the wind is virtually another character in the plot, beating at the windows, blowing through the doors, making clothes and hats flap, and undoubtedly adding to the stress and tension of life and driving Gish out of her mind.  Director Victor Sjöström (who later played elderly Professor Isak Borg for Ingmar Bergman in Wild Strawberries) keeps the melodrama moving with a relative minimum of inter-titles, some spooky special effects (super-impositions of white horses representing the northerly winds) and excellent use of Gish and her expressive eyes for maximum impact.  Yet, yet, I enjoyed Sjöström’s earlier films, The Phantom Carriage (1921) and He Who Gets Slapped (1924), a bit more, despite the fact that, for many, The Wind is a masterpiece of silent cinema.  I wonder then whether the musical accompaniment I experienced (seemingly of Italian origin on my copy) showed the film in its best light; perhaps I should watch it again in a different version.

The Docks of New York (1928)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Docks of New York (1928) – J. von Sternberg

Vividly realized silent tale of a stoker who comes ashore to find drunken fun and winds up rescuing a girl from drowning and marrying her.  One of von Sternberg’s late silent films (before he hooked up with Marlene Dietrich), showing his interest in “painting with light” – there is smoke or fog in many of the scenes.  George Bancroft is compellingly lout-like but ultimately sympathetic as he overcomes his primitive male instincts to sacrifice himself for his “wife”.  Betty Compson has less to do and looks rather ambivalent about Bancroft but throws her lot in with him anyway; such may have been the fate of a good-time gal in the 1920’s – no other options.  Unlike other silent films of this period, von Sternberg doesn’t take things truly wide, trying to stun us with amazing set-pieces (a la Murnau), so I was a bit disappointed.  But keeping the drama small and focusing on the characterizations may be the strategy that led to his later success with Marlene – it was all about her and everything else was stripped away (or really everything else, indulgent as it became, glorified her).