VCI Entertainment
announced this past week that director George Nicholls, Jr.’s 1937 film
adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1876 novel, “Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the
Czar,” The Soldier and the Lady, will be making its DVD debut on Oct.
17.
This RKO release was an
odd choice for an action tale in mid-1930s.
The Czar (Alexander II) had been assassinated in 1881, and his grandson,
Nicholas II was murdered by the Soviets during the summer of 1918 … who were
now firmly in control of Russia when the film was released and adding to that,
there were war clouds on the horizon in Europe.
So doing a remembrance of the glory days of
the Russian Empire, who, by the way, were the bad guys in director Michael
Curtiz’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (released the previous year by
Warner Bros.), seemed a tad out of step.
Nevertheless, here it
is. Michel Strogoff (played by Anton
Walbrook, who also played the same role in both the 1936 separate German and
French versions) is a courier for the Czar, who has been dispatched with plans
that must be delivered to the Grand Duke (William Stack), who is isolated in
Siberia (telegraph communications have been cut) by the combined forces of the
Mongols and the Tartars, who are under the command of Ivan Ogareff (Akim
Tamiroff).
It is one grand adventure
after another as Strogoff must make his way across the vast expanse of Russia
to deliver his communication. Along the
way he meets “the lady” in question, Nadia (played by Elizabeth Allan — A
Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Mark of the Vampire, etc.), his
mother, who he must deny (or reveal his identity) is killed, he saves the life
of a spy (Margot Grahame), who returns the favor and she too dies … it often
looks bleak for Strogoff, but The Soldier and the Lady does have a
happy ending.
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