Robert Donat is a British spy who is a "Knight Without Armor" in this 1937 Alexander Korda film, also starring Marlene Dietrich as a widowed Countess. Donat is A.J. Fothergill, a Brit in Russia who is recruited to spy on the revolutionary movement in 1913 because of his knowledge of the language. After being imprisoned in Siberia, he's released due to the 1917 revolution. As an assistant to a commissar he met in Siberia, he is assigned to the takeover of the estate of Countess Alexandra (Dietrich). He has to take her to Petrograd, and ultimately, they fall in love. He then attempts to get her out of the country.A very good and absorbing film with Donat and the beautiful Dietrich giving wonderful performances as they trudge through Mother Russia. Be she in peasant clothes, babushka, nightgown, wedding gown, or evening gown, Dietrich looks fabulous, makeup intact. The most stunning scene takes place in the beginning when she wakes up in her gorgeous bedroom and rings for her maid. No maid. She gets up and searches the house. Nobody. She goes outside in her long white flowing nightgown, hair loose. Nothing. She spots her maid and calls to her. The maid runs. Dietrich turns around to see the entire horizon covered with soldiers coming at her. Fabulous.There are many wonderful scenes, including a crowd stopping a train, that really capture the feeling of the chaos, panic, and dirt of war.Robert Donat is marvelous, elegant of voice, sometimes a character actor and sometimes, with a wavy lock of hair on his forehead and kissing Dietrich, a very effective romantic leading man.Very exciting film, and you really care about these characters. Highly recommended.

Casting Marlene Dietrich (a coup achieved only after Donat's own two preferred actresses proved unavailable -- he was supposed to have the right of veto on the leading lady) may have been a publicity coup for Alexander Korda, but to be honest I'm not sure it did the film any favours.With Dietrich on board and then Donat so ill the start of the film had to be shot around him, the part of the Russian Countess was massively pumped-up, causing the running time to go seriously over-length. Supposedly about two hours of material then had to be cut out, a process which is most evident towards the beginning of the film where passing time is skated over very unevenly.Secondly, scenes featuring Dietrich have a tendency to feature long, loving close-ups of her face at the expense of pacing, plausibility (her make-up never falters) and acting -- Donat's own close-ups are reaction shots in which we see a shadow of significant emotion or realisation, but Dietrich's might as well be promotional stills for all the expression she gets to demonstrate. (Ironically she also comes across as too worldly and sophisticated for the part, certainly in the opening scenes: I had her pegged as an unmarried daughter/companion in her twenties from her racetrack appearance, and was jolted to subsequently find that the character was supposed to be a teenage débutante!) Dietrich was far better in her earlier Russian role of "The Scarlet Empress", Catherine the Great: here she is little more than a doll to be pushed around and emerge in an improbable china glow.It is perhaps because of this that I can't see any real chemistry between the two characters: Donat shows chivalry and protectiveness throughout, but his subsequent protestations of love (and her requisite responses) felt to me very arbitrary and artificial. A sudden excess of calling one another 'darling' and kissing are not the same thing as demonstrating any actual feeling between the characters, unfortunately, and the script feels forced in this respect.Where the film does shine -- or at least engross - is in its depiction of the scrambling post-revolutionary war of brutality and counter-brutality, and the hordes of hapless refugees caught up between the two. There are a lot of executions in this film; then just when the audience is keyed up for another, the hero makes his escape (courtesy of an unexpectedly schoolboy knockdown blow) and the others scheduled for execution take advantage of the confusion to attempt to turn the tables. Subconsciously I suppose we expect a morally uplifting outcome, which makes the brutal bayoneting that follows all the more shocking.As others have said, the scene where the Countess wakes up to find her entire house deserted -- save for one peasant woman at the riverside who flees at the sight of her -- is a powerful one, as is the moment when she faces down the mob... unsuccessfully. I did find the big reveal of the line of soldiers suddenly coming over the brow all around the horizon to be a little too cinematic for its own good, though: shades of Westerns throughout the ages, in a scene that's more "Tale of Two Cities". (My other problem with this scene is that, again, Dietrich displays almost no emotion of any kind and just stands there in soft-focus looking blankly beautiful.) Sections of this film are very good, but they are mostly not the sections featuring the character of the Countess; and certainly not those using her as a glamour object, which tend to be rather banal. I can't help suspecting that what I'm seeing is the bones of the original novel showing through the star overlay.

That was Jacques Feyder's only English movie.He had just done his major works " Le Grand Jeu" "Pension mimosas" and "La Kermesse Heroique" and "Knight without armour" in spite of obvious qualities cannot compare with them.This is a tormented love story between a commissar (Donat) and a Russian countess of the old Russian aristocracy (Dietrich)who try to get to the border .The plot sometimes recalls a "Doctor Zhivago" in miniature.Best scenes ,in my opinion,are to be found in the first part: Dietrich,walking across her desirable mansion,all dressed in white ,finding that her staff has left home and joined the revolution;the same,facing a sinister-looking pack of Reds in her park.The mad station master,ceaselessly repeating that a train is coming into the station (madness was also present in Feyder's former works :"Le Grand jeu "was a good example of folie à deux )

Hardly ever seen on TV or cable, this sweeping spectacle is a rare but welcome opportunity to see Marlene at the height of her powers as a star. Sadly, good prints seem to be rare. We saw it on a slightly scratchy VHS cassette we bought used on the internet but it brought back wonderful memories and its attention to period Russian detail is truly great. After a while the film overcame its physical limitations (in the print). The Russian atmosphere is superior to that in Dr. Zhivago, which seems flat and two dimensional in many ways. The first appearance of Alexandra at the races in England, her departure by train for Russia, her presentation at court in a procession of girls in white presentation gowns and Russian headdresses--all perfectly detailed--to Nicholas and Alexandra, ("Lucky devil", a court lady says of her fiancé, "he is the most stupid officer at court and she is the smartest girl"), the attempted assassination of her father in her wedding procession across a bridge in St. Petersburg, her taking tea alone at the gardens of the neoclassical Adraxin country estate, served by a procession of servants and then waking up and finding the servants have deserted, the Revolution having begun, are all extremely beautifully done. True to 1930's convention, her makeup is never out of place, except in one scene when peasants capture her in her gauzy nightgown and negligee.Robert Donat is a perfect foil to her elegance, dashing and always the epitome of 1930s savoir faire. His scenes as a prisoner in Siberia are also very well done. All in all a great 1930's adventure of the highest style. They will never make another one like this! Jacques Feyder was a great director and his use of Marlene is equal to von Sternberg's. Bravo Countess Adraxin! Another great and sadly overlooked star vehicle for La Dietrich!