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Dès le début, a George Cukor film. "All right, what shall we talk about?" "Women." The Saint Petersburg lady (Kay Francis) loves but is not in love with the earnest doctor (Kenneth Mackenna), still they agree to marry as "a scientific union... an interesting experiment." The Great War breaks out and he's drafted, his medical research has no place in the barracks, so thunders the General (Walter Huston). "I hope to give you some blood to study firsthand very soon." His recalcitrance gets him court-martialed, his wife has less than a week to act before his rendezvous with the firing squad. The actress made, not born, trying on a courtesan disguise in hopes of captivating a pardon out of the imperial bear. She's sandwiched between uniformed lechers at the local brothel, run by the histrionic madam (Jobyna Howland) who clutches her bosom operatically during periods of stress. "Your heart?" "No, my floating rib." Arthritic melodrama with vivacious touches, in other words a collaboration between a silent-serial workhorse and the future director of The Philadelphia Story. The heroine catches the General's eye, in no time she has the martinet nicknamed "Iron Face" on a seesaw under the moonlight, a matter of personas. "How many are there of you?" The whining hero languishes in his cell while the villain grows in complexity, feminine confessions at the palace segue into masculine scuffles in the trenches. "The climax is rather funereal." Sternberg (Dishonored) and Capra (The Bitter Tea of General Yen) profit from this dry run. With Paul Cavanagh, Oscar Apfel, Victor Potel, and Ann Brody. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |