.gif)
The Last Command (film)
Encyclopedia
The Last Command is a 1928 silent film
directed by Josef von Sternberg
, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz
, from a story by Lajos Biró
. Star Emil Jannings
won the very first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
for his performances in this film and The Way of All Flesh
, the only year that multiple roles were considered. In 2006, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress
and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
.
) looks through photographs for actors for his next movie. When he comes to the picture of an aged Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), he pauses, then tells his assistant (Jack Raymond
) to cast the man. Sergius shows up at the Eureka Studio with a horde of other extras and is issued a general's uniform. As he is dressing, another actor complains that his continual head twitching is distracting. Sergius apologizes and explains that it is the result of a great shock he once experienced.
The film then flashes back
ten years to Czarist Russia
, which is in the midst of the Communist Revolution
. Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, the Czar's cousin and commander of all his armies, is informed by his adjutant that two actors entertaining the troops have been identified as dangerous "revolutionists" during a routine passport check. He decides to toy with them for his amusement. When one of them, Leo Andreyev, becomes insolent, Sergius whips him across the face and has him jailed.
Leo's companion, the beautiful Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent
), is an entirely different matter. She intrigues Sergius. Despite the danger she poses, he takes her along with him. After a week, he gives her a pearl necklace as a token of his feelings for her. She comes to realize that he is at heart a man of great honor who loves Russia as deeply as she does. When she invites him to her room, he spots a partially hidden pistol, but deliberately turns his back to her. She draws the weapon, but cannot fire. Despite their political differences, she has fallen in love with him.
When the Bolshevik
s capture the train on which they are traveling, she pretends to despise him. Instead of having him shot out of hand like his officers, she suggests they have him stoke coal into the locomotive all the way to Petrograd, where he will be publicly hung. When everyone is drunk, however, she helps him escape, giving him back the pearl necklace to finance his way out of the country. Sergius jumps from the train, then watches in horror as it tumbles off a nearby bridge into the icy river below, taking Natalie with it.
Ten years later, Sergius is reduced to poverty
, eking out a living as a Hollywood extra. When he and the director finally meet, Sergius recognizes him. Leo, in an ironic act calculated to humiliate him, casts him as a Russian general in a battle scene. He is directed to give a speech to a group of actors playing his dispirited men. When one soldier tries to incite a mutiny, telling the general that "you've given your last command", he whips the man in the face as instructed, just as he had once struck Leo. Slowly losing his grip on reality, he imagines himself genuinely on the battlefield and passionately urges them to fight for Russia. Overstraining himself, he dies, inquiring with his last words if they have won. Moved, Leo tells him they have. The assistant remarks, "That guy was a great actor." Leo replies, "He was more than a great actor - he was a great man."
told newspaper columnist Gilbert Swan that the story had a real-life inspiration: a general in the Imperial Russian Army named Lodigensky whom Lubitsch had met in Russia, and again in New York, where he had opened a Russian restaurant after fleeing the communist revolution. Lubitsch encountered the ex-general once more, when the latter appeared in full uniform looking for work as an extra at $7.50 a day, the same rate as Sergius. Lubitsch later told Lajos Biró the anecdote. Under the name Theodore Lodi, Lodigensky went on to play a handful of roles between 1929 and 1935, including Grand Duke Michael, a Russian exile who is forced to work as a hotel doorman, in the 1932 film Down to Earth.
released a DVD set of three lesser known von Sternberg films: The Last Command, Underworld
and The Docks of New York
.
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
directed by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...
, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane . Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott, said that Herman Mankiewicz was...
, from a story by Lajos Biró
Lajos Biró
Lajos Bíró was a Hungarian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who wrote many films from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. He was born in Nagyvárad, Austria-Hungary and eventually moved to the United Kingdom where he worked as a scenario chief for London Film Productions run by...
. Star Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
won the very first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
for his performances in this film and The Way of All Flesh
The Way of All Flesh (film)
The Way of All Flesh is a drama film directed by Victor Fleming, written by Lajos Biró, Jules Furthman and Julian Johnson from a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. The film is unrelated to Samuel Butler's novel The Way of All Flesh, and is now considered a lost film.-Cast:*Emil Jannings - August...
, the only year that multiple roles were considered. In 2006, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
.
Plot
In 1928 Hollywood, director Leo Andreyev (William PowellWilliam Powell
William Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
) looks through photographs for actors for his next movie. When he comes to the picture of an aged Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), he pauses, then tells his assistant (Jack Raymond
Jack Raymond
Jack Raymond was a British actor and film director. Born in Wimborne, Dorset in 1886, he began acting before the First World War in A Detective for a Day. In 1921 he directed his first film and gradually he wound down his acting to concentrate completely on directing - making more than forty films...
) to cast the man. Sergius shows up at the Eureka Studio with a horde of other extras and is issued a general's uniform. As he is dressing, another actor complains that his continual head twitching is distracting. Sergius apologizes and explains that it is the result of a great shock he once experienced.
The film then flashes back
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
ten years to Czarist Russia
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...
, which is in the midst of the Communist Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, the Czar's cousin and commander of all his armies, is informed by his adjutant that two actors entertaining the troops have been identified as dangerous "revolutionists" during a routine passport check. He decides to toy with them for his amusement. When one of them, Leo Andreyev, becomes insolent, Sergius whips him across the face and has him jailed.
Leo's companion, the beautiful Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in Tampa, Florida and known as Betty, she was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone...
), is an entirely different matter. She intrigues Sergius. Despite the danger she poses, he takes her along with him. After a week, he gives her a pearl necklace as a token of his feelings for her. She comes to realize that he is at heart a man of great honor who loves Russia as deeply as she does. When she invites him to her room, he spots a partially hidden pistol, but deliberately turns his back to her. She draws the weapon, but cannot fire. Despite their political differences, she has fallen in love with him.
When the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s capture the train on which they are traveling, she pretends to despise him. Instead of having him shot out of hand like his officers, she suggests they have him stoke coal into the locomotive all the way to Petrograd, where he will be publicly hung. When everyone is drunk, however, she helps him escape, giving him back the pearl necklace to finance his way out of the country. Sergius jumps from the train, then watches in horror as it tumbles off a nearby bridge into the icy river below, taking Natalie with it.
Ten years later, Sergius is reduced to poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, eking out a living as a Hollywood extra. When he and the director finally meet, Sergius recognizes him. Leo, in an ironic act calculated to humiliate him, casts him as a Russian general in a battle scene. He is directed to give a speech to a group of actors playing his dispirited men. When one soldier tries to incite a mutiny, telling the general that "you've given your last command", he whips the man in the face as instructed, just as he had once struck Leo. Slowly losing his grip on reality, he imagines himself genuinely on the battlefield and passionately urges them to fight for Russia. Overstraining himself, he dies, inquiring with his last words if they have won. Moved, Leo tells him they have. The assistant remarks, "That guy was a great actor." Leo replies, "He was more than a great actor - he was a great man."
Cast
- Emil JanningsEmil JanningsEmil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
as Grand Duke Sergius Alexander - Evelyn BrentEvelyn BrentEvelyn Brent was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in Tampa, Florida and known as Betty, she was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone...
as Natalie Dabrova - William PowellWilliam PowellWilliam Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
as Leo Andreyev - Jack RaymondJack RaymondJack Raymond was a British actor and film director. Born in Wimborne, Dorset in 1886, he began acting before the First World War in A Detective for a Day. In 1921 he directed his first film and gradually he wound down his acting to concentrate completely on directing - making more than forty films...
as the Assistant - Nicholas Soussanin as the Adjutant
- Michael VisaroffMichael VisaroffMichael Visaroff was a Russian-born film actor. He appeared in 113 films between 1925 and 1952. He was best known for his uncredited appearance in an early scene of Dracula as the nervous Hungarian innkeeper who, as Renfield is traveling to meet the Count, warns him about the actual existence of...
as the Bodyguard - Fritz FeldFritz FeldFritz Feld was a film character actor actor who appeared in over 140 films, both silent and sound. His trademark was to slap his mouth with the palm of his hand to create a pop sound.-Biography:...
as A revolutionist. He plays a screaming revolutionary who at one point sneers in Jannings' face.
Inspiration
Ernst LubitschErnst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
told newspaper columnist Gilbert Swan that the story had a real-life inspiration: a general in the Imperial Russian Army named Lodigensky whom Lubitsch had met in Russia, and again in New York, where he had opened a Russian restaurant after fleeing the communist revolution. Lubitsch encountered the ex-general once more, when the latter appeared in full uniform looking for work as an extra at $7.50 a day, the same rate as Sergius. Lubitsch later told Lajos Biró the anecdote. Under the name Theodore Lodi, Lodigensky went on to play a handful of roles between 1929 and 1935, including Grand Duke Michael, a Russian exile who is forced to work as a hotel doorman, in the 1932 film Down to Earth.
Home media
In 2010, The Criterion CollectionThe Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
released a DVD set of three lesser known von Sternberg films: The Last Command, Underworld
Underworld (1927 film)
Underworld is a 1927 silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg.-Plot:Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.-Cast:* George Bancroft as "Bull" Weed* Evelyn Brent as "Feathers"...
and The Docks of New York
The Docks of New York
The Docks of New York is a silent film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring George Bancroft, Betty Compson and Baclanova. It tells the story of a prostitute who tries to rise above her life on the docks by finding love...
.