User reviews

Knight Without Armour finds Robert Donat as a British agent, fluent in Russian, sent to spy on the revolutionary movement even before World War I started. Such things were done I'm sure as farsighted folks in the Foreign Office probably saw Europe headed for general war and Russia would have been the United Kingdom's ally in that case.

Donat plays his part all too well, he's captured as a revolutionary and sent to Siberia and spends most of World War I there. Whatever else it does it certainly helps his cover. The original revolution that brought Kerensky to power frees the political prisoners and Donat now has to try and make his way home.

In a parallel story aristocrat Marlene Dietrich gets the shock of her life when one day she wakes up and her servants have fled because the Russian Revolution has come to town. From hero{ine} to zero overnight, she's got to get out of a country that's now shooting her kind on general principles.

They become allies of convenience and of course the shared experience of escape forges a romance as well. Both turn out to be pretty clever at taking advantages of breaks as they are captured a couple of times during the film.

Robert Donat was one of the few of her leading men to not fall under Dietrich's amorous sway. But they became good friends and according to a recent biography of Marlene, Dietrich helped Donat with a special breathing technique she learned about to help control his asthma. Donat suffered from asthma all his life and it eventually killed him.

The film is based on a lesser known work of British novelist James Hilton who also wrote Random Harvest and Lost Horrizon and of course Goodbye Mr. Chips for which Donat won his Academy Award for. It seems as though Hilton wrote his books with either Robert Donat or Ronald Colman in mind for the screen, they played his heroes so well.

On screen Knight Without Armour suits the images and talents of Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich well and fans of both will appreciate it.

As usual, seeing this film via TCM or Turner Classic Movies was a most enjoyable experience. The subtext of "Knight ..." is that every known revolution is an entirely messy affair. Entirely.

The story is told in a rather straight-forward fashion and for most fans it will only augment their affection for, or resentment against, the female lead -- Marlene Dietrich. Like certain other stars of the cinema in the 1930s, she is always really just Marlene, take it or leave it alone. It works well in this mad adventure of a Russian Countess who awakes one morning to discover her world has crumbled.

The scene where she is confronted by a mob of revolutionaries, on her own beautifully manicured lawn, and without so much as one member of her staff there to speak up for her, is amazingly effective. It works and it works well in a fairly understated and yet unambiguous way.

Robert Donat, always one of my personal favorites, does yeoman's work.

He's the British secret agent who speaks Russian like a native and is clever enough to adapt to almost any situation. He is brilliant in this role ( and it is understood after the fact that Dietrich insisted that he not be replaced when he suffered a bad asthma attack as the production was just getting under way ).

All these decades later, those of us who are not so conversant with the historical basis of the Russian Revolution will probably be shocked by the casual slaughters that both the Reds, and the Whites indulged in.

There's much to recommend in this fine film and the Russian music that gets salted in here and there is tremendously emotional and workable.

Flat out, I really liked this rickety old movie and I could have used another fifteen minutes of Dietrich and Donat, no problem !! Eight of ten stars for the intrigue and this beguiling romance.

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.

This was one of the most extreme examples of the durability of eye makeup in 30s cinema. Whether waking up from deep sleep, held prisoner without toilette facilities, covered with dead leaves on a forest floor, traveling across the muddy steppe, the leading lady's penciled brows, shadowed lids and false eyelashes neither budge nor smudge. Even the lipstick stays perfect until near the end when a bout of illness suddenly erases it.

But seriously, this is a thoughtful and multifaceted look at the Russian Revolution from a James Hilton novel. But too often the plot wanders off periodically into atmospheric details until one forgets it entirely until it picks up again, reminding us that, oh yes, there is a plot.

Marlene Dietrich plays a beautiful countess who emerges from her silken sheets one morning to face a silent mob of armed revolutionary peasants marching directly towards her. She is taken prisoner but rescued by Robert Donat, a British agent posing as a Russian revolutionary. Together they flee their Red pursuers through the wreckage and chaos of post-Revolutionary Russia.

As in Doctor Zhivago many years later, we enter the Russian civil war from the perspective of the Reds and then the Whites. This film lacks Zhivago's sweep and scope but presents a convincing and compelling, if somewhat sketchy, picture of its time and place with masterful camera work, authentic looking costumes and surroundings (including actual condensed breath when called for), stirring Russian music, a sigh-inducingly romantic portrayal by Dietrich, the last of her wide-eyed, breathy ingénues, and one of imperturbable gallantry and nobility by Donat.

In "Knight Without Armour" (***) Robert Donat plays a British journalist in 1914 revolutionary Russia who is persuaded by his government to go undercover as a "red." The catch is that if he's caught the British home office will disavow any knowledge of him. He is caught and spends two years in Siberia before the death of Czar Nicholas and the fall of the Russian nobility free him. He then becomes the right hand man for an influential revolutionary commissar. Needless to say, his heart isn't really in it and when he gets an opportunity to escort a rich and pampered Russian countess back to headquarters in Petrograd for questioning he decides to help them both escape from the country. They are then tossed about like footballs from one side to the other. The plot is really rather ingenious, although you get the impression that the filmaker's hearts are more on the side of the corrupt "white" establishment if for no other reason that it never misses an occasion for glamorous star close-ups of Marlene D. in extravagantly opulent costumes. Even a young red official is so smitten with her he sacrifices himself in order to save her and Donat from one nasty predicament. I suppose the film wanted to avoid appearing to be too pro-communist, but in the process it comes down a little too much on the side of "noblesse oblige." The film ends a bit abruptly with Donat and Dietrich seemingly a long way from being out of the woods yet, but all-in-all it's beautifully produced and holds the interest pretty much all the way through. Good scene: Dietrich awakening one morning alone in her palace to discover that her entire household of servants has fled. If you can find a good print of this unusual oldie, it's worth seeing.

Robert Donat speaks Russian, so he gets sent to Russia by the British Government to spy on the growing communist movement. When they take over, he's on his own resources, and Aristocratic Marlene Dietrich to take care of, as they try to get to safety.

It's not a particularly original script, but the handling suggests that director Jacques Feyder and cameraman Harry Stradling had seen both the MGM A TALE OF TWO CITIES and THE SCARLET EMPRESS; there are plenty of touches that suggest both. Add in two performers acting a a hot storm, and a lovely small turn by John Clements as a sentimental Bolshevik, and you have a movie that perhaps should have done better. I suppose the problem was that Alexander Korda overspent on it, and it shows in occasional bloat.

No matter that the world is crumbling around her, MARLENE DIETRICH is always ready for her close-up. She gets plenty of them in KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR, a sort of poor man's "Dr. Zhivago" with overtones of "The 39 Steps" and other such thrillers thrown in.

ROBERT DONAT is the dashing hero and he looks fine, although it is said that he was already suffering badly from the asthma that would eventually kill him years later. It helps to have some background on this subject before watching because the film gets off to a murky start about opposing forces in Russia and Donat being asked to become a British spy and assuming the identity of a Russian.

The first big action scene is just one of many explosions along the way, as Donat decides to help Dietrich escape from the revolutionaries around them who are brutally bent on killing each other.

I was too tired to watch the whole movie and will have to wait to see how it all turns out the next time it airs on TCM.

Marlene Dietrich's fans will see her looking her glorious best throughout all the strife and turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Interesting to note that this was Miklos Rozsa's first assignment as a composer. He makes use of lively Russian folk tunes throughout.

Fothergill (Robert Donat) is an Englishman working as a translator in pre-WWI Russia. When he loses his job he is asked by the British government to work as a spy which of course comes with risks. Mistaken for a terrorist in an attack against the Tsarist General Vladinoff (Herbert Lomas) he spends the entire WWI as a prisoner in Siberia. When the Russian Revolution comes and with the end of WWI he is released by the Communists and becomes a Commisar. His life is further endangered when he helps a Countess Alexandra (Marlene Dietrich) escape execution at the hands of the Communists and eventually falls in love with her.

Epic scale Revolutionary set story based off a novel byJames Hilton that has the pretensions of Boris Pasternak's 'Dr Zhivago'. The film enhances Dietrich's role as she was the key selling point of the film, but this war time set romancer parallels and equals anything coming out of Hollywood at the time. The big production values are driven by producer Alexander Korda, with Frenchman Jacques Feyder directing and some superb camerawork by Harry Stradling, Bernard Browne and Jack Cardiff given the film a great look.

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!

One truly cares about the characters in "Knight Without Armour" (1937) (which at present is only available on Region 4 DVD---officially, that is). John Clements almost steals the film with a role that is little more than a cameo, but superbly acted. One can see how this part led to his being cast as the lead in "The Four Feathers" (1939), the very best motion picture produced by Alexander Korda and released by London Films, and one of the best movies of all time. Other character actors such as Miles Malleson also do memorable bits.

This atypical role for Marlene Dietrich---a truly vulnerable, feminine character, though noble and glamorous---is superbly realised by the German actress, here playing a Russian countess. Robert Donat, excellent as always, is the lead, an Englishman travelling incognito in Russia before, during, and after the Revolution.

There is one scene early in the film which is an interesting reversal of a portion of "Battleship Potemkin"'s Odessa Steps sequence: in "Potemkin" the "White" Cossacks, a faceless, cruelly efficient horde simultaneously gun down a "Red" woman who tries to appeal to them for mercy for her dying child. In "Knight Without Armour" a horde of Reds trudge en masse across the palatial estate of "White" Countess Alexandra, played by Marlene Dietrich. The scene in which she encounters the unsympathetic, destructive mob on her great lawn, and the momentary lull before they act, is unmistakably a comment upon "Potemkin" and its pro-Red propaganda.

American audiences may find the various, regional British accents of the Russian characters a bit jarring. Filmed during the height of the Depression, this is a great lovers-on-the-run film with a world-falling-apart backdrop, irresistible entertainment in any era. Find this one! Used VHS copies are easily had. Miklos Rozsa's score, one of his first for film, has the same warmth and pathos that embodies most of his splendid catalog of work.

King Vidor, having seen Alexander Korda's KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR, was so overwhelmed by the 'beautiful photography' and the 'railroad trains coming in at a station' that it inspired him and aided him in filming his movie THE CITADEL. And indeed, it still seems that the two most eye-catching features of KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR, based on James Hilton's novel WITHOUT ARMOUR (1934) and adapted to the screen by Frances Marion, are: the grandeur of the Denham Studios that Alexander Korda founded in London in 1932 and the great contribution of the cinematographer Harry Strandling. Another artistic plus is renowned Miklos Rozsa's music score. Nevertheless, although this movie has quite stood a test of time, it prompts quite diverse opinions. On the one hand, Jeremy Arnold rightly observes in his review on the film that "everything about it was big – the cast, the budget, the sets and the scope of the story itself;" on the other hand, Dennis Schwartz bitterly admits that it never gave him "a pause to think he was seeing something special." Consequently, the film has, after all these years, turned into paradoxical 'delight without ardor.' Whenever viewers may be dazzled by the movie's power, there is 'something missing.'

The movie opens in Ascot but soon moves to St Petersburg, the symbol of tsarist Russia, one of the favorite locations for both the great love stories and the great dramas. The time span that the movie depicts is between 1913 and 1917. Though not a long period of time for the storytelling, a highly challenging and dramatic time. 1917 actually marks the most notorious change in the Russia of the time – it is the Russian Revolution, the time when, indeed, 'today' meant the END for so many people. Within these hard circumstances and the nights of history, something very genuine grows – it is the privileged 'love' theme incorporated so frequently into such contexts by Hollywood.

He is a young Brit, a journalist overwhelmed by the revolutionary ideas having been severely punished by the previous tsarist tyranny within the nights without glamor in Siberia. She is the countess, the relic of the past, the twilight of the old world and and mockingly laughed at by comrades. Yet, these differences, echoing the key screen romances of misalliance do not stop them from falling into each other's arms in the most unpredictable and hazardous situations. 'Where would I go without you?' appears to be their message. Within the 'extensive odyssey through revolutionary Russia' (as Jeremy Arnold observes), they blend with the historical background and, consequently, there is no highlight of neither aspect. Variety staff rightly refers to Jacques Feyder's movie being "a labored effort to keep this picture neutral on the subject of the Russian Revolution finally completely overshadows the simple story intertwining' the pair in love. Dennis Schwartz also addresses this aspect saying that the film is "a big-budget sumptuous love-on-the-run adventure story, with the chaotic Russian revolution of 1917 in the background." Therefore, that is not where the movie's delight resides.

It resides in the performances delivered by "Knight Without Asthma" (nickname of Robert Donat) and "Countess Without Armour" (nickname of Marlene Dietrich).

Today, it is perhaps Marlene Dietrich who supplies the movie with interesting aspects for the viewers. Under the direction of Jacques Feyder (known for two Garbo films), she delivers something more sumptuous than under the bizarre, almost authoritatively parental obsessions of Josef Von Sternberg. Although Variety criticized Dietrich for 'restricting herself to just looking glamorous,' one cannot agree that she is the woman with sole glamor herein. Of course, it is not Dietrich's typical role (foremost because she does not sing) but, nevertheless, she offers lots of moments, first as the countess Alexandra Vladinoff in dazzling costumes to the devoted manifestation of pure romance-product of the Hollywood of the time. She is not Catherine the Great but the old Russia, the fallen wealth, the suffering dignity, the manifestation of the declined might. Actually, three scenes require particular attention: first, Marlene facing the mob, which evokes the arrogance and brutality of the Bolsheviks at the Vladinoff Estate which echoes Garbo as the Swedish queen facing the incited mob (of course, the differences are marked by verbal/non verbal communication and the result but the moments bare certain similarities); the humorous bathtub scene (which echoes another 1930s star taking a milk bath – Claudette Colbert) and the scene at the railroad station when the two quote British playwrights.

The collaboration with Robert Donat results in quite a chemistry between the two. From the historical point of view, they truly mark a confusing border between the two worlds they represent, within the conflicts of those worlds; from the artistic standpoint, however, they gain quite outstanding and underrated achievement. And Marlene's collaboration with others? And the supporting cast?

From the supporting cast, one can say that Basil Gill as revolution sympathizer bookshop keeper Axelstein is worth attention. He echoes all male background characters that, to a certain extent, has impact on the leading character. But from Marlene's collaboration with Alexander Korda, there is a nice anecdote in which there was a sum and there was a promotion of...Josef Von Sternberg. James Arnold refers to that. Korda was asked by the assertive woman to hire Von Sternberg in his upcoming production with Charles Laughton and Merle Oberon. The production was one of the most doomed productions ever, the never completed film haunted by a 'mysterious curse...I CLAUDIUS based on Graves' novel, fully materialized much later in the stunning BBC production of the 1970s, this time with a smashing success. But let me conclude about this movie.

KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR is slightly 'delight without ardor – it offers a lot and yet, there is something missing. Something that could have been done to make it less dazzling and more timelessly appealing, something more psychological that, perhaps, had existed in the creative project but did not fully materialize. In spite of that, it's worth seeing!

Not a film to run out and spend weeks trying to locate, KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR is a sweet romantic adventure that is dramatic in an old-fashioned, romantic sense.

While well acted, the story is a little thin, and the tension does not so much build, as it seeps into the scene and crawls out of the way of the action. You don't feel worry or dread for the characters, but you do feel concern. Boring? Maybe a little.

The characters are interesting, if a little stereotypical, but what do you expect from a film of this era? What this does have going for it is Ms. Dietrich, her acting is directed a little big, but it's that era. See it to look at Marlene.

It takes place in Russia, but otherwise this film is a long way from "The Scarlet Empress." Marlene Dietrich, playing an aristocrat who is targeted by the Bolsheviks, does not display her usual tough persona. She's warm, human, almost innocent, not to mention gorgeous. No wonder so many of the male characters take great risks and even betray their beliefs to help her. Robert Donat's character, the man who wins her heart, is a British agent operating under deep cover, originally assigned to infiltrate radical groups in Czarist Russia. Caught up in World War I and the Russian Revolution, he is cut off from contact with his spy bosses for years. Alone and then with his lady love, he has a remarkable series of adventures. The story is sweeping, fast-paced and intelligent, making "Knight Without Armour" one of the best movies in English about this turbulent period in Russian history. As some other commentators have noted, it is not propagandistic. Czarist Russia is shown as an often unjust and corrupt place, but also tormented by mindless radical terrorism. The Bolsheviks who later seize power are a mix of idealists, thugs and fanatics, with the fanatics on their way to gaining the upper hand. You don't have to care about Russia to enjoy this movie. If you like intelligent thrills, you ought to see it.

In Tsarist Russia, the incoming Communists cause understandable problems for glamorous, aristocratic Marlene Dietrich (as Alexandra Vladinoff) and handsome British journalist-turned-spy Robert Donat (as Ainsley J. Fothergill). Neither have backgrounds that are especially well-liked by the working class. When the Russian Revolution gains steam, Ms. Dietrich and Mr. Donat struggle to escape what looks like the installation of a firing squad on every block.

Like Greta Garbo observed in the hilarious "Ninotchka" (1939), "There are going to be fewer, but better Russians."

Dietrich and Donat are a very attractive couple, but their relationship with the camera is obviously more important than their characters' growing love. Both are clearly posed and unfocused throughout. A truly memorable characterization is given by John Clements (as Poushkoff), a suspicious but star-struck commissar you should look out for later in the running time. Director Jacques Feyder and photographer Harry Stradling make it a beautiful-looking film.

****** Knight Without Armour (6/1/37) Jacques Feyder ~ Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, John Clements, David Tree

This is a pretty crazy old movie, which used to appear regularly on television in the late 1950's.

It would be easy to make fun of the overwrought plotting in the film and the rather chirpy, "Boy's Owns" performance of Robert Donat as A. J. Fothergill, which sees him stiff upper lipping his way through labour camps, mass migrations and firing squads. However the film has its moments and although shot entirely in pre WW2 Britain, it captures a sense of the chaos and dislocation of the Russian Revolution.

A. J. Fothergill, an English Journalist in Russia, ends up working for the British Secret Service at the outbreak of the revolution. Posing as a Bolshevik he falls in love with Russian aristocrat Alexandra Adraxine (Marlene Dietrich) who is fleeing for her life. As they head to safety they encounter characters on both sides of the civil war: reds and whites.

It is in the subplots where the film captures a sense of a world turned upside down. The couple meet people unable to grasp the new role history has trust on them; the deranged station master announcing the arrival of non-existent trains or the commissar who falls for Marlene's character at first sight.

If ever a film captured the mystique of Marlene Dietrich it is this one. In every scene, whether in full regal glory at a ball, trudging through the mud or snow, even dressed as a man, key lighting accentuates those cheekbones and casts the little butterfly shadow under her nose. She glows in every scene.

The British tone to the whole thing takes some getting used to and is more obvious than in Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" where the cultural transplanting is subtler. In both films, an intense love story plays out against the same turbulent historical backdrop.

"Knight" views the communists and the anti-communists in equally grim terms with summary executions all over the place. The rattle of the machine guns used in the executions is a motif throughout the film.

It's a bit creaky nowadays, and is unlikely to be on anyone's top ten, however "Knight Without Armour" has an indefinable mood, and a couple of scenes that stay in the memory.

Just check the schedule for TCM.

Next showing is 6pm Nov 16th 2010.

As the above review says - it's "a great lovers-on-the-run film with a world-falling-apart backdrop" - as well as a wonderful period piece, and extravagant costume film! It is a very complicated film reminiscent of Dr Zhivago! And even tho little known, it was just a pleasant surprise to see the future star of The Four Feathers join the ensemble halfway thro...

TCM is wonderful because they restore old films, and this one is presented scratch free with no sound defects...

A British spy acts like a KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR as he courageously helps a Russian Countess escape the Revolution.

Sir Alexander Korda's London Films produced this lavish drama which puts beautiful Marlene Dietrich & handsome Robert Donat into one mortal peril after another as they attempt to flee a chaotic Red Russia. While full of escapes & near misses, the script takes it for granted that the viewer has the necessary background to understand the causes for the Russian Revolution, and to be able to tell the difference between the Whites and the Reds. A little bit of knowledge adds to the enjoyment of the film immensely, as does the obvious chemistry between Donat & Dietrich, who play their parts with serious conviction.

A fine cast lends their support to the film: David Tree as an enthusiastic young revolutionary; Allan Jeayes as a hospitable White general; and chinless Miles Malleson as a drunken commissar. Legendary stage actress Dame Irene Vanbrugh appears very briefly in a few opening scenes as an elderly Duchess escorting Dietrich.

Especially good are little Hay Petrie as a mad stationmaster waiting for trains which will never arrive, and plummy voiced Sir John Clements as a youthful Red official with a tragic secret.

Movie mavens will recognize Torin Thatcher as a London passport official and corpulent Peter Bull as a bullying commissar, both unbilled.

The film has excellent bones, as it were, based as it is on a novel by James Hilton, which was adapted by the legendary Frances Marion. Lajos Biro wrote the screenplay. The score by Miklós Rózsa incorporates rousing Russian singing and was performed under the baton of Muir Mathieson. Jacques Feyder was the director.

While the White Russians are ostensibly the 'good guys' in the plot, the film is judicious in showing the casual brutality practiced by both sides, as in the scene where Dietrich presides over a dinner table with her White hosts, only to have her meal disturbed by the execution of the Red prisoners. Shortly thereafter, with a change of fortune, the Communists shoot their enemies on the same spot.

This film is set in a period of which I have little knowledge so it has a historic and educational interest which bolsters the overall score. We are in the period of the Russian Revolution and we have the ruling classes being overthrown by the peasant's revolt. On the 'white' wealthy side we have Countess Marlene Dietrich (Alexandra) who needs to flee the Bolshevik uprising and her storyline runs alongside that of British spy Robert Donat (Fothergill) who has been tasked with infiltrating the Russian Revolutionaries. Their paths cross and they must flee the country amid a volatile situation with countless executions on both sides. Russia is a dangerous place (still is).

There are memorable sequences, eg, Dietrich waking up one morning in her huge country estate to discover the place completely empty - no staff anywhere. Where has everyone gone? It's the beginning of the end for her lifestyle. There is also some great dialogue when Dietrich and Donat are on the run in a forest and they start to turn on the romantic chemistry. Her line - "Do you like my forest?"...What!! ...Ha ha - that is some quality dialogue and I assume the Hays Code didn't apply to UK films.

We also get a moment which belongs in all films about Russia - Russian poetry. Dietrich and Donat have a poetry recital face-off. He repeats some poetry and then it's Dietrich's turn and it doesn't disappoint. It's exactly the depressing kind of thing that you would stereotypically expect - no life, no optimism, gloom, no food, etc - just exactly what you would expect and it's a great laugh-out-aloud moment. Well, it was for my wife and I. You just can't beat Russian poetry to cheer yourself up.

I would see this movie again and again just to look at Robert Donat and hear that lovely voice of his, although I must agree that Marlene Dietrich isn't bad either. She manages to get herself into some stunning gowns and looks none the worse for being overthrown by a group of bitter peasants. (That's always the problem with her movies.) Knight Without Armor is a wonderful film of its era, full of charm and with some unexpected allusions to what we must assume (in fact, know) was a very successful sexual encounter in a scene just dripping with double entendre. The film is an interesting and more or less ambiguous view of the Russian Revolution. The chemistry between the two actors works very well--and Donat truly is a knight without armor. It's a shame that he was in so few films--he was such a remarkable and beautiful presence on the screen.

Now you've got to keep an eye on the plot in this little espionage/counter espionage thriller as Robert Donat is a Brit sent to spy on the Bolsheviks and gets caught up in all sorts of shenanigans that lands him in Siberia until 1917 when, amidst all the chaos he alights upon the beautiful "Countess" (Marlene Dietrich) and both have to try and get the hell out of a rapidly imploding Russia. The two stars gel quite well, once they start sharing scenes together and although the story follows a pretty well trodden path, the two , together with a few familiar faces from British cinema (John Clements, Irene Vanbrugh and a rather good, drunken, Miles Malleson) manage to keep this slightly over-long escape story going. Harry Stradling's photography re-creates well the coldness of the Russian climate (from Buckinghamshire!) and the eeriness and devastation of a messy, brutal revolution and Lajos Biró's adaptation of the novel keeps pretty much to the plot.