...set during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
The film opens with a train freight car filled with aristocrats in ragged disguises fleeing to Sebastopol, one of the few White Army strongholds left, as "Red hordes" savage the countryside. Among those fleeing are Miriam Hopkins, as a former commoner-ballerina who had become accepted as a part of the luxurious upper class, and Alan Mowbray as a proud aristocrat.
Arriving in a town, they temporarily set up quarters in a hotel only to have it soon captured by some Red sailors, headed by lumbering, macho strutting George Bancroft. He sets his eyes upon Hopkins, with one thing largely on his mind but she, ugh, is most definitely not interested.
The print of the film I saw was often quite dark, but that didn't stop me from seeing that this was still a film of considerable production values as far as sets and photography (Karl Struss behind the camera) were concerned. The story sets up tension by having the White Army suddenly take the Reds prisoner (now it's Bancroft and his sailors forced to shovel coal on a ship headed for a White-held city where they will be executed) only to have them stage a daring mutiny. But there will be still more plot turns ahead as to who will and will not be the prisoner and facing a firing squad.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film is when, as a ruse, Hopkins offers herself to Bancroft (his sweaty dream come true) as part of an escape plot by the aristocrats on board a ship. The next morning, though, she's in love with the big lug and wants to save his life now that, she thinks, the tables have been turned, and he and his men will once again be prisoners.
The story will have both Bancroft and Hopkins ready to sacrifice themselves for the other and it becomes ridiculously over the top in the manner of so many studio productions. Besides, just looking at burly, towering roughneck Bancroft and petite, svelte, refined Hopkins, there's not much credibility they could ever be a couple.
Nevertheless, despite a story that becomes increasingly silly towards the end the first portion of the film still has considerable tension, the production values are solid and they make the film worth a look. And, for those familiar with 1933's Story of Temple Drake, seeing the similarities in Hopkins' reactions to a night of sex (assault in the case of Temple Drake) with a brute brings another aspect of interest to this film.
