Providing one can overlook its biographical inaccuracies this is a gloriously entertaining piece.
As the title character Ivan Mozzukhin is wonderfully seedy and combines a lightness of touch with the look of a sexual predator who encounters precious little resistance. This great actor's sense of comedy is very much to the fore in the scene where he gives a manicure to crackpot Czar Peter 111 played by the excellent Rudolf Kleine-Rogge. The eagle-eyed might spot an uncredited young Michel Simon as a buffoonish soldier.
Venice of course loomed large in Casanova's life and the images of that city, especially during carnival time, are simply stunning. The art direction is superlative and as a bonus, rather than the curse of a totally incongruous 'specially composed' score that blights so many silent film restorations, we have one by maestro Georges Delerue which suits the material admirably.
Mozzukhin and director Alexandr Volkoff were a formidable team and this is arguably their finest achievement.
As the title character Ivan Mozzukhin is wonderfully seedy and combines a lightness of touch with the look of a sexual predator who encounters precious little resistance. This great actor's sense of comedy is very much to the fore in the scene where he gives a manicure to crackpot Czar Peter 111 played by the excellent Rudolf Kleine-Rogge. The eagle-eyed might spot an uncredited young Michel Simon as a buffoonish soldier.
Venice of course loomed large in Casanova's life and the images of that city, especially during carnival time, are simply stunning. The art direction is superlative and as a bonus, rather than the curse of a totally incongruous 'specially composed' score that blights so many silent film restorations, we have one by maestro Georges Delerue which suits the material admirably.
Mozzukhin and director Alexandr Volkoff were a formidable team and this is arguably their finest achievement.