Tovarich (US 1937)

Anatole Litvak: Tovarich (US 1937). Claudette Colbert (Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna/Tina), Charles Boyer (Prince Mikail Ouratieff/Michel). 

Tovarich (title in Italy) / Tovarich or Tovaritsch (title in Finland) / Kamrater i Paris.

    US 1937. Prod.: Anatole Litvak per Warner Bros. Pictures. 

    D: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce omonima (1933) di Jacques Deval e dall’adattamento (1935) di Robert E. Sherwood. Scen.: Casey Robinson. F.: Charles Lang. M.: Henri Rust. Scgf.: Anton Grot. Mus.: Max Steiner. 

    Int.: Claudette Colbert (granduchessa Tatiana Petrovna/Tina), Charles Boyer (principe Mikail Ouratieff/Michel), Basil Rathbone (il commissario bolscevico Gorotchenko), Anita Louise (Helene Dupont), Melville Cooper (Charles Dupont), Isabel Jeans (Fernande Dupont), Morris Carnovsky (Chauffourier-Dubieff), Victor Kilian (gendarme). 

    98’. Bn.

    Helsinki premiere: 20 March 1938 Capitol.

    35 mm print from Warner Bros. Pictures, concession by Park Circus

    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024: Journeys Into Night: The World of Anatole Litvak

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 24 June 2024

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " Opening with the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris (embellished with Litvak’s trademark crane and rooftop shots) and quickly singling out two down-and-out Russian exiles, a former Prince and a Grand Duchess played by Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert, the couple innocently ask a musician why people are dancing all over the city."

" “It has something to do with history,” the musician replies. Colbert and Boyer need the rest of the film to find out how much their own personal relationship and struggle for survival has something to do with history. The Czarist fortune they faithfully safeguard puts a Bolshevik Commissar on their tail. The penniless aristocrats seek a job as servants for the spoiled Duponts whose mansion becomes the stage for a soft screwball comedy as things go charmingly hokey pokey. "

" The script was penned by ever-reliable Casey Robinson, based on Robert E. Sherwood’s English adaptation of a French play by Jacques Deval which had a successful 4-year run in Broadway. After having bowed out of Cette vieille canaille, and with Mayerling making him a huge star, Boyer and Litvak were reunited in the US. When Warner rejected a remake of Cette vieille canaille, Litvak pitched Tovarich. Despite Boyer’s reservation about playing a Russian in Paris – he argued that the only cast member with a real French accent would be him – he gave in. The film’s success, even in France, proved Boyer’s worries baseless. In an example of star power contributing to the overall look of a film, Charles Lang was summoned from Paramount on Colbert’s request. When Lang’s slow pace in setting up the camera upset the studio who fired him, Colbert defended him and gave up two weeks’ worth of her salary to reinstate him. "

" Premiered at the same time as Mayerling was enjoying a delayed US distribution, this forerunner of Anastasia in terms of investigating identity, history and displacement had all the elements that Litvak cared for: role-playing, old world sophistication winning over socialism, couples losing privilege but finding their place in the new world, and the acknowledgment, albeit in an ambivalent tone, of new political structures which makes for the film’s fantastic finale. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Anatole Litvak's screwball comedy is based on a French play, itself based on the true story of Count Alexei Ignatiev. The truth is very much stranger than fiction, but the core is the same: the White Russian handing over the Imperial Treasury to the Soviet Union, for the good of the country.

The popular screenwriter Jacques Deval's play had already been filmed in France by himself as Tovaritch (FR 1935), and in its interesting cast we can discover Pierre Renoir as Commissar Gorochenko and the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Voyage au bout de la nuit) in a bit part.

The comedy is crazy and witty. It starts on Quatorze Juillet, and the aristocratic Russian immigrants are ignorant of what it is. When they learn it is a feast for a Revolution, they don't feel like celebrating.

I find the Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert duo a bit insecure in the beginning (although this was already their third film together), but they develop an engaging approach to the complex charade later on. The characters they portray are members of high aristocracy in exile who have to disguise as common servants. They are in possession of the Russian State Treasury, but they live like bums from hand to mouth, even having to resort to stealing groceries, because the millions in the bank are meant to be used for a Counter-Revolution in Russia. 

The most astounding encounter is with the Soviet Commissar Gorochenko, portrayed by Basil Rathbone in his best icy villain mode. Tables have turned many times. Gorochenko as a revolutionary has been persecuted by Imperial Russia, and our aristocrats have been subjected to torture in Ljubljanka by Gorochenko. 

The anthology piece of Tovarich is their discussion which consists of death threats and menaces of extreme torture. That is the official self, and so much for diplomacy. Privately they are attracted to each other.

Finally they share the commitment of keeping the Baku oil fields in the hands of the Russian people. That is why the State Treasury has to be returned to Russia. An extraordinary ending for a Hollywood movie.

"Suomi mainittu" ("Finland was mentioned") as we in our provincial-self-ironic mode register anything with Finland in it. In this movie Finland appears as the gate to freedom for our beloved aristocratic rascals. Beyond the fabula: the real life Alexei Ignatiev was a friend of the Marshal of Finland C. G. E. Mannerheim.

The first Hollywood role of the incredible Curt Bois (1901-1991) who started his film career in Imperial Germany in 1907 and ended it in Wim Wenders's Der Himmel über Berlin.

...

One of the best books of the year is Anna Reid's A Nasty Little War : The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (2023). According to Reid, during the Civil War, the Czech Legion guarded a train full of imperial gold and probably "handed it over to the Red Army in exchange for safe passage, but the story persists that they took it home and founded Czechoslovakia's National Bank with it" (p. 268).

George Pal: Date with Duke (US 1947).

 

DATE WITH DUKE

US 1947. Director: George Pal

Running time: 7'

RECOVERED AND RESTORED

Copy: UCLA Film & Television Archive Library

AA: Puppet animation to "The Perfume Suite". Perfume bottles appear as instruments, and a live action Duke Ellington is the leader of the minuscule band.

From IMDb: " Pianist Duke Ellington performs his Perfume Suite while conducting a group of stop-motion animated perfume bottles. Wonderful early integration of live action and animation. Actor: Duke Ellington. Voice: Walter Tetley. Director of Photography: William Snyder, A.S.C. Technicolor Color Director: Natalie Kalmus. Story: Jack Miller. Puppet Photography: John S. Abbott. Animation: Gene Warren. Sound: Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording. 35 mm/7:24. Paramount Presents A George Pal Puppetoon in Technicolor. Produced and Directed by George Pal.—© Arnold Leibovit "