Director: Michael Curtiz
Year:  1934
Rating: 5.0

---

Not having read the memoir that this is based on - British Agent by Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart - I can't say how faithful it is (I did order it from Amazon) - but my guess is not very unless this British diplomat spent much of the Russian Revolution mooning over a girl and being more indiscreet with classified information than Hillary Clinton! But Hollywood managed to take his adventures in an incredibly exciting period of history - The Russian Revolution - and turn it into romantic sludge that wallows along at the speed of a wounded hedgehog. Very dull for the most part until the final 15 minutes. I thought that near the end the film was going to show some guts and shock us, but alas no - it goes out with a whimper. For the most part very much housebound other than a few scenes of people rioting, this just feels like it could have played in a theater - lots of talk about the Revolution and ideals and honor and love and not much else.


A very early role for Cesar Romero and a few others but all the meat goes to Leslie Howard who does his typical whimsical British acting that made a career for him in Petrified Forest and Gone With the Wind and feels so old fashioned now and Kay Francis basically just allows her eyes to glisten and widen in adoration. I was clearly expecting much more from this since it was directed by Michael Curtiz who usually brings a fair amount of energy to his films but he had his clunkers too being very much a  studio director.