Moscow Nights

Captain Laurence Olivier of the Russian Army is wounded in the First World War. He is nursed by Penelope Dudley-Ward, who is to marry industrialist Harry Baur -- financial arrangements for her family. Seeing that the two are in love, Baur wins 80,000 rubles from Olivier and gives him thre days to pay. Olivier cannot, so he plans to kill himself, but decides to live so he can take Miss Dudley-Ward from Baur. To do this, he goes to nice, vague Athene Seyler. She writes letters for wounded soldiers, and asks Olivier to see what happened to a package she posted to a friend at the front, and says she has a friend who can lend him the money. He shows up, she explains that she doesn't want the money back, just information... and Olivier is arrested for espionage and treason while attempting to call his office to have her arrested.

It's a remake of the previous year's French movie by the same name, which is why Baur is in it. He's the only one in the movie who seems Russian. He and Miss Seyler are wonderful in their roles, while Olivier stands around looking nervous, and Miss Dudley-Ward is beautiful but dumb. Director Anthony Asquith directs with a lot of nice visual touches, but if I want to see Baur playing a Russian, there are lots of movies for that, and likewise for Miss Seyler playing a nice old lady.

This early Asquith film is set in Imperial Russia during World War I. Olivier plays a Russian officer (Ignatoff) who is recuperating in a military hospital, where he is looked after by a nurse, Natasha (Dudley-Ward). She is already engaged to Brioukow, a rich merchant of peasant stock, played by Harry Baur. This is a sentimental wartime drama with an interwoven minor spy plot. Its main interest lies in Olivier's performance .He was to repeat a Russian role but now with heavy Russian accent in "The Demi-Paradise" (1943), also made by Asquith. Harry Baur was a great French actor who starred in many films by some of the most famous directors before World War II. He was tortured to death by the Gestapo in 1943. He was most excellent in "Poil de carotte" (1932), Julien Duvivier's masterpiece. In this film, however, he is prone to a certain overacting and he is not helped by having been dressed up to look like Rasputin, although he is not really villainous in this role. Film buffs will be interested to note that there is an uncredited short appearance by Anthony Quayle in his debut on the silver screen.

I have the exact opposite opinion to others' comments about poor acting in this film. Each of the top 4 characters performs well and this makes the story captivating.

The story is not complicated but it has enough twists to make everything work. However, the real success is in the deliveries by the cast. Athene Seyler conveys a coy depth of character for one old-lady spy. Harry Bauer is demonstrably gauche, yet somehow as pensive as a poker player at times. Penelope Dudley-Ward has the least difficult acting role, but she puts forth her naivety and mixed emotions effectively. Finally Laurence Olivier is also good as a young man wooing the girl he loves while trying to conceal his inadequate worldly experience.

This film is definitely in the top end of 1930s films.

Moscow Nights is not a superb film, but it is studded with so many jewels and excellences that one feels guilty criticising it. Probably the worst that one can say is that Penelope Dudley-Ward, no matter how hard she tries, always looks like she should be at Croydon, waiting to board a Hanley-Paige for India, not playing a nurse named Natasha.

The plot is sometimes a bit thin, and one cannot help but wonder why the film was set in Russia. Still, it seems one of the wave of espionage films that confronted British audiences following Hitler's accession in 1933.

The appearance of Anthony Quayle adds interest, and Harry Bauer does a very creditable job as the film's villain. Olivier is brilliant as the young officer, who, although the hero, is something of a cad - in contradistinction to Bauer's character, who though a boor, is also something of a hero. There are wonderful settings, views and scenes that clearly show Asquith's grasp of Hollywood technique. In many ways, it is more Hollywood than Hollywood.

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