Tovarich (1937)

Director:

Anatole Litvak

Writers:

Jacques Deval (play)
Casey Robinson (writer)

Release Date:

25 December 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Ousted from their homeland by the Bolshevik revolution, a royal Russian couple find themselves impoverished and living in Paris...

Plot Keywords:

Butler | Russian | Rat Poison | Exile | Bastille Day

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna Romanov
Charles Boyer	...	Prince Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff
Basil Rathbone	...	Commissar Dimitri Gorotchenko
Anita Louise	...	Helene Dupont
Melville Cooper	...	Charles Dupont
Isabel Jeans	...	Fermonde Dupont
Morris Carnovsky	...	Chauffourier Dubieff
Victor Kilian	...	Gendarme
Maurice Murphy	...	Georges Dupont
Gregory Gaye	...	Count Frederic Brekenski
Montagu Love	...	M. Courtois
Renie Riano	...	Madame Courtois (as Reine Riano)
Fritz Feld	...	Martelleau
Heather Thatcher	...	Lady Kartegann
May Boley	...	Louise

Also Known As:

Tonight's Our Night (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Vitaphone

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #3536)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

(Original Broadway production) Tovarich (1936). Comedy with music. Written by Jacques Deval. English adaptation by Robert E. Sherwood. Orchestra and Arrangements by Alexander Haas. Plymouth Theatre: 15 Oct 1936- Aug 1937 (closing date unknown/356 performances). Cast: Marta Abba, Adora Andrews, Margaret Dale, Aristides de Leoni, Amanda Duff, J. Colville Dunn, Jay Fassett (as "Charles Dupont"), Irina Feodorova, Barbara Gott, John Halliday, Cecil Humphreys (as "Commissar Gorotchenko"), Ernest Lawford, Leni Stengel, James E. Truex, Frederic Worlock. Produced by Gilbert Miller.

Quotes:

Mikail: Do you love your pigeon?
Tatiana: Every feather, my darling!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Breakdowns of 1938 (1938)

Soundtrack:

The Volga Boatman

"Tovarich" means Comrade

Delightful sophisticated `continental' comedy (kind of a `reverse' Ninotchka), so entertaining indeed, that when it ends you have the feeling that it moved along too swiftly, keeping you wanting at least 30 minutes more of film!

French born actors, Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert work together wonderfully well, under Anatole Litvak's very good direction, in this engaging comedy, based upon a french play adapted by Robert E. Sherwood himself, about two penniless members of the highest rank Russian nobility (escaped from the 1917 Russian Revolution) currently living in Paris, who masquerade as commoners in order to be hired as servants of an aristocratic household, full of sort-of-zany and bizarre characters.

Isabel Jeans and Melville Cooper are perfectly cast as the aristocratic couple, Mr. and Mrs. Dupont, who hire them, absolutely unaware of their new butler's and maid's pedigrees. Basil Rathbone, as always, gives an excellent performance as Comissar Gorotchenko, a very `special' guest at a lavish dinner party arranged by the Duponts, one of the funniest (and at the same time, most dramatic) sequences of the movie.

Boyer and Colbert are so utterly charming that one does not wonder why the Duponts and both, their daughter and son, are completely conquered and taken by the `undercover' Royal Russians, Prince Mikail Alexandrovitch Ouratieff (Boyer) and Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna Romanov (Colbert), known by them as Michel & Tina.

This was the third and last pairing of its leading stars, who had previously worked together successfully at Paramount Pictures, in `The Man From Yesterday' (1932) and `Private Worlds' (1935).