Tempest
Starring: John Barrymore, Camilla Horn, Louis Wolheim, George Fawcett, Boris de Fast, Ullrich Haupt
Directed by: Sam Taylor
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Drama, Romance
1928

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A peasant officer (John Barrymore) in Russia longs to be promoted and falls in love with a princess (Camilla Horn). His standing, however, presents a great barrier to his goals.

Review:

Tim: I enjoyed Sam Taylor's Tempest, but the 96 years since the movie's release have definitely contributed to this film showing its age. It's a good movie, but there's quite a few things I disliked about it. It's well made, but a bit too long. It did win an early Academy Award and it's absolutely worth seeing, but it's not quite among my favorite 1920 films.

The story itself does feel fairly epic. We're introduced to Ivan Markov, an ambitious peasant soldier in the Russian army. He studies late into the night, determined to become an officer. This is unlikely to happen, as his peasant status creates ill will toward him from the aristocracy. It was interesting to see the Russians depicted as the good guys (well, some of them) and to explore this different culture. We're told Ivan is a remarkable person, an individual perhaps able to slip the bonds of his birth standing. He meets a Princess and while the two repeatedly clash, he falls in love with her. So, this is a guy with lofty aims- a peasant desires to become a higher officer in the Russian army and to marry a Princess betrothed to another man. His ambitions don't make him many friends and we watch as society and the aristocracy crushes him down.

Now, I understand the time period in which this film was released, but Ivan absolutely makes things worse for himself. He commits sexual assault on the princess by forcing a kiss. I know many people thought this was romantic in 1928, but you definitely get the ick watching it today. He (I guess SPOILERS, but the movie is almost 100 years old, so...) also gets smashed at his first officer party, goes into the princess' room and passes out in her bed. These are not the actions of an incredibly responsible, respectable man. I struggled with this because the film obviously wants us to root for Ivan. Our protagonist is supposed to be this great man, but he routinely engages in bad behavior that he then suffers for. It hurts a bit of the "underdog" component of this story when Ivan isn't blameless when the elite Russian soldiers do him harm.

We do get a number of other sequences- a long jail one, some scenes of the Russian Civil War- the film feels longer than its 1 hour, 42 minute run time. It does feel epic at times, a story of a man, but the broader context of change in Russia unfolds before our eyes. The film, being a silent movie, does take a lot of grit to get through. The accompanying music is fine and we get a good deal of text cards. It's easy to follow the story and character development. Still, this is a movie that felt like it took a long time to reach its eventual conclusion. I liked it, but it felt tough at times.

John Barrymore makes a good Ivan, though. He's obviously not Russian, but again, 1928. I thought he performed well- he has a lot to do on screen and he played it all quite effectively. Camilla Horn was quite strong, too. Her performance works and while I never felt much chemistry between their characters, I enjoyed Horn's screen time and she certainly makes the movie better with her performance. Louis Wolheim adds a great supporting performance- warm, larger-than-life. He was quite entertaining. George Fawcett was great- I loved his performance and the movie would get better whenever he showed up on screen. Fawcett is a memorable early example of a supporting actor giving a tremendous performance. The cast as a whole was solid.

This film is noteworthy for winning the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. This came during the very first Academy Awards and the movie shared the win with The Dove, as they were both designed by William Cameron Menzies. That's how they did it back then, which is a stupid way to do it. Still, the design work here is legitimately impressive- the interior design was especially well done.

I can't say I completely loved Tempest, but it's absolutely a good movie. It has some epic qualities and offers a ton of drama and some romance, set against real historical events. If I could give this film a "7.25", I probably would. However, since I don't do that, this film needed to be rounded down a bit. Still worth seeing, though.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Wings, In Old Arizona, The Dove