Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

The Last Command Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 26, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg.

Whether fairly or unfairly, Josef von Sternberg is probably best remembered for his collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, and in fact Criterion itself has celebrated that partnership with their excellent release Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood. That very partnership may have led some film fans to assume that von Sternberg, like Dietrich, was a German emigré, but as one of the supplements on the set currently under discussion gets into, von Sternberg was actually born Jonas Sternberg in Vienna, moving to the United States with his family when he was still a tot. The “Josef”, and, later, the “von”, were added at later dates, perhaps in an attempt by either (von) Sternberg himself or those wanting to help his career to make him seem more “exotic” somehow (there’s some indication that the “von” addition may have been inspired by Erich von Stroheim). This same supplement details von Sternberg’s early career in the film industry, which included everything from being a “go fer” to editing before von Sternberg finally kind of almost stumbled into a directing career with his self funded The Salvation Hunters, which this supplement goes on to describe as one of the first supposedly mainstream “Art Films”. Von Sternberg had a kind of rocky first few years as a supposed wunderkind, with a proposed film starring Mary Pickford and then another evidently completed film done for Charlie Chaplin never really seeing the light of day (the supplement makes a passing case that the Chaplin film may be lying around in someone’s vault somewhere and that a hunt for it should be undertaken). Those stumbling blocks may have played into the decision by Paramount's legendary B.P. Schulberg to offer von Sternberg a job not as a director (at least initially), but as more of a jack of all trades assigned to clean up various productions which the studio deemed were in trouble for one reason or another. Von Stroheim's success with regard to Children of Divorce in particular finally gave him the opportunity to start directing for Paramount, and the films in this set are among his early silents for the studio.

Trivia fans who like to keep track of data related to the Academy Awards probably know that Emil Jannings won the very first Best Actor in a Leading Role statuette for his work in The Last Command, though if those trivia fans are anything like this admitted lover of arcana, at least prior to this particular release, they may have never actually seen the film itself. The Last Command bears a few curious similarities to Tovarich, a property which began as a French play and film but which ultimately emigrated to the United States (as both a film and, decades later, a musical co-starring Vivien Leigh, who won a Tony), in that it documents the travails of a “survivor” of Tsarist Russia who seeks to find a better life in America.

In this case, the Russian is Grand Duke Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings) who, after calamity struck both professionally and personally during the Bolshevik Revolution, has found himself consigned to scraping around Hollywood for work as an extra. He’s cast in a new film by director Leo Andreyev (William Powell), a man whose surname may indicate he is also of Russian descent, and in fact has a bit of a history with the erstwhile Grand Duke. The film actually uses the Hollywood aspect as what amounts to bookending, with the middle part of the film offering a flashback which details a doomed romance in Russia between Alexander and Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent), a woman who also had a connection to Leo.

This is a surprisingly modern feeling story, not just due to its Hollywood “meta” elements but even with regard to some of its sidebars, like what amounts to post traumatic stress disorder suffered by Alexander. The film is rather goofy at times, and it tips over into a near Sunset Boulevard-esque depiction of the madness of an actor tending to blur the fine line between “reality” and a “movie”. Jannings is a force of nature throughout the film, but it’s also a lot of fun to see William Powell in an early silent role.

The Last Command Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All of the presentations included in 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. The expansive insert booklet included in this set lumps all three together in their informational page devoted to the transfers, with the following verbiage:

All three films are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. These high definition digital transfers were created on a Spirit HD DataCine, with density correction done on a da Vinci 2K. Underworld's transfer was created from a 35 mm fine grain positive, The Last Command's from a 35 mm duplicate negative, and The Docks of New York's from a 35 mm fine grain master positive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices and warps were manually removed using MTI Film's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for flicker and small dirt.

Though The Last Command shows the same levels of pretty ubiquitous damage and age related wear and tear as the other two films in this set, perhaps because it was sourced from a dupe negative rather than a fine grain positive this is probably the grainiest and fuzziest looking presentation in the set. Scratches, nicks and other prevalent signs of damage are virtually nonstop, but the film also features a very heavy grain field which can contribute to the masking of fine detail at times. Contrast isn't quite as convincing as in the other two presentations, and some of the intertitles, which I assume were originally against black backgrounds, can look a bit on the milky side. There are a few abrupt changes in clarity and brightness. My score is 3.25.

The Last Command Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

All three films included in this set feature two different musical soundtracks delivered via LPCM 2.0 tracks. All three films feature scores by the reliable Robert Israel, with two of the three, Underworld and The Last Command , also featuring a score by the Alloy Orchestra, and the third, The Docks of New York, also featuring a score by Donald Sosin. As mentioned in the Supplements section of the overarching 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg Blu-ray review, there are some interesting comments by the composers included in the insert booklet which may be of some interest to fans. The Israel scores are inventive orchestral pieces, often quite boisterous. The Alloy Orchestra scores are a bit more experimental in nature, but are often surprisingly similar to Israel's in terms of orchestration and even general musical ideas presented. The Sosin score is more of a piano based work and also features a vocal by Joanna Seaton. Fidelity is fine and problem free throughout all scores, with a nicely burnished tone in the orchestral offerings and a slightly bright but never really brittle ambience to the piano based score. I noticed no issues whatsoever with regard to distortion, dropouts or other damage.

The Last Command Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Von Sternberg Til '29 (1080i; 35:16) is an interesting 2010 visual essay by Tag Gallagher where he analyzes von Sternberg's early silent directorial style and argues that he was pretty much fully formed before Marlene Dietrich came along.

The Last Command Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Last Command may be the most instantly "accessible" film in this set due its kind of modern "meta" aspect (despite the quaintness of the Hollywood it depicts), and it certainly offers Jannings a real showcase for his talents. Video is again problematic at times, but audio is great and the supplement very interesting. Recommended.