
“The woman of flame -- the man of steel -- together !”
In the last days of Czarist Russia, Russian-speaking Briton A.J. Fothergill is enlisted by his government to go undercover as Bolshevik radical Peter Ouranoff in an attempt to gain access to the revolutionaries' inner circle. Tasked with accompanying lovely aristocrat Alexandra Vladinoff from Moscow to Petrograd to be tried for crimes against the proletariat, Peter attempts to spirit her out of the war-torn country.
Release Date: 7/23/1937
Runtime: 100 minutes
Languages: English, Spanish
Director: Jacques Feyder
Budget: $0.3M
0Companies: London Films Productions, United Artists, London Films
Countries: United Kingdom
CinemaSerf
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.
Duchess of Zorin

Marlene Dietrich
Countess Alexandra Vladinoff

Robert Donat
Ainsley J. Fothergill / Peter Ouronov

Irene Vanbrugh
Duchess of Zorin

Herbert Lomas
General Gregor Vladinoff

Austin Trevor
Col. Adraxine

Basil Gill
Axelstein

David Tree
Alexis Maronin

John Clements
Poushkoff

Frederick Culley
Stanfield

Laurence Hanray
Forrester
Dorice Fordred
The Maid
Franklin Kelsey
Tomsky
1953