2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
VINTAGE HISTORICAL ROMANCE., October 1, 2002
This review is from: Scarlet Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This almost-forgotten flick from 1932 is a lavishly adorned costume epic which is set during the Russian Revolution. Aristocratic Fairbanks plays Nikiti who flees his Russian home with his maid Tanyusha (the elusive-on-video Nancy Carroll). The lovers end up in Constantinople where they marry and settle into a life of common labour. Eventually, Fairbank's cultured personality makes him discontented with his new life & he succumbs to having an affair with a vampy woman named Vera (Lilyan Tashman)...The plot drags in bits, and the movie is somewhat uneven, however the magnificent sets are impressive: from the great aristocratic homes to the lowly Turkish dives. Notable mostly for a rare glimpse of the once-popular and talented Nancy Carroll, an actress of Irish descent who was in many fine films during the early talkies. More of her finer films hopefully will find their way to video in the near future!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The peasants are revolting...and so is this movie!, January 29, 2010
This review is from: Scarlet Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This movie has lots of action and little heart. Let's forget for a minute that it gets just about every aspect of the Russian Revolution wrong - after all we only have only under an hour here to tell our story. In fact, the czar abdicated after World War I proved a disaster for the country, and a provisional government tried to rule as a pseudo-democracy until the Leninists took power nine months later, mainly because they promised to immediately withdraw Russia from the war. Now, back to our story.
Here we have the revolution being "rumored" in Russian newspapers in what appears to still be a functioning country until violence erupts suddenly and upends the life of nobleman Baron Nikita 'Nikki' Krasnoff (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). He flees his home with his former servant girl Tanyusha (Nancy Carroll) in tow, and they start to make a new life in Constantinople. Before the revolution the Baron made a regular habit out of making a play for the girl, not out of any real passion, but out of boredom as a diversion of sorts. The revolution doesn't change this, and he continues to try to take advantage of what is obviously a very simple girl. It certainly doesn't make the audience like this guy to see him toying with her so. Tanyusha follows the Baron because she literally has no place to go after the revolutionaries take over the Baron's home, and she has known no other life other than waiting on Nikki hand and foot. Once in Constantinople, Nikki quickly wearies of life as a penniless laborer, and that is when he meets up with his former lover, Russian aristocrat Vera Zimina, who has a plan for getting them to Paris where the Tsarists have congregated after the revolution. Unfortunately for Tanyusha, Vera's plan does not include her.
This film manages to completely waste the considerable acting talents of early talkie actress Nancy Carroll. She does a good job with what little she is given to do, but that is not much. Lilyan Tashman is the standout here, even though she has only a small role as Russian vamp Vera. Lilyan was so often given supporting roles just as she is here, but her earthy voice and glamorous looks make her the center of attention in every scene in which she appears. Guy Kibbee even shows up in a humorous bit as an American tourist who is curious about the Russian royalty that has been forcefully ejected from their homeland.
I recommend passing on this one.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
a very rare film, January 21, 2011
This review is from: Scarlet Dawn [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This rare and very excellent movie has to be discovered. Real jewel of the beginner talking cinema, with a not-very-well-known subject and the young but already excellent actor Douglas Fairbanks jr. Was the outcome, the official idea of the USA at the beginning of the 30s, namely a certain accommodation with regard to the Soviet regime, a criticism of the renunciation of the Western countries, an idyllic romantic happy end imposed by producers, an ideological blindness, quite at once. I hope that a day "Scarlet dawn" will be a DVD with subtitled multi-languages and notices about the director and the subject.
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