'Michel Strogoff', one of Jules Verne's most thrilling tales, is probably one of his least read although known by the dozen or so film adaptations of which Victor Tourjansky's from 1926 is indisputably the finest. It's spectacle, scope, technical expertise, mise-en-scene and visceral excitement have never been equalled in subsequent sound versions.
The title character is one of Verne's most intrepid heroes and in terms of emotional intensity and sheer physicality Ivan Mozzhukin cannot be matched. In later portrayals Anton Walbrook comes close but even he pales in comparison whilst Curt Jurgens is simply too stolid and it is best to draw a discreet veil over John Philip Law.
The director has cast his wife Nathalie Kavanko as Nadia but she is a fine actress in her own right and a formidable presence as opposed to soppy 'love interest'. Not only does her brother Boris de Fast contribute to the screenplay but does a marvellous turn as Féofar-Khan. As Ivan, Acho Chakatouny is villainy incarnate and special mention must be made of Jeanne Brindeau who is magnificent as Strogoff's mother.
How fortunate we are that, although this film was long considered lost, two incomplete 35mm prints were pieced together by the Cinematheque Francaise with its glorious tints and stencil colouring restored.
Most of those involved in the making of this epic were exiles from the Russian revolution and I trust it is not too fanciful to see in the depiction of the Tartar hordes a reference to beastly Bolsheviks. Non-Slavonic contributors included one of the three cinematographers, Léonce-Henri Burel and arguably the greatest matte painter of them all, Walter Percy Day, described by Michael Powell as a 'wizard of film.'
The editing is exemplary and the intercutting of the dancers at the ball with the charging Tartars has been singled out for praise by no less than Kevin Brownlow.
One could wax lyrical about this masterpiece ad infinitem but suffice to say it remains a totally absorbing filmic experience which never drags throughout its near two and a half-hour length and provides further proof that during the 1920's film reached a level of High Art.
