Cast View all

	Emil Jannings	Grand Duke Sergius Alexander
	Evelyn Brent	Natalie Dobrova
	William Powell	Leo Andreyev - The Director
	Jack Raymond	The Assistant
	Nicholas Soussanin	The Adjutant
	Michael Visaroff	The Bodyguard
	Fritz Feld	A Revolutionist
	Harry Cording	Revolutionist
	Shep Houghton	Russian Youth
	Alexander Ikonnikov	Drillmaster
	Nicholas Kobliansky	Drillmaster
	Guy Oliver	Wardrobe Attendant
	Sam Savitsky	Russian Staff Officer
	Harry Semels	Soldier - Movie Extra
	Robert Wilber	Undetermined Secondary Role

Crew View all

Director	Josef Von Sternberg
Writer	Lajos Biró, John F. Goodrich, Ernst Lubitsch, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Josef Von Sternberg
Producer	Jesse L. Lasky, B.P. Schulberg, Adolph Zukor
Musician	Robert Israel
Photography	Bert Glennon

Personal

Notes

Christmas 2019 gift from Beth
Part of 3-film boxset.

THREE-DISC SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
High-definition digital restorations of all three films
Six scores: by Robert Israel for all three films, Alloy Orchestra for Underworld and The Last Command, and Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton for The Docks of New York
Two video essays from 2010, one by UCLA film professor Janet Bergstrom and the other by film scholar Tag Gallagher
Swedish television interview from 1968 with director Josef von Sternberg
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Geoffrey O’Brien, scholar Anton Kaes, and author and critic Luc Sante; notes on the scores by the composers; Ben Hecht’s original treatment for Underworld; and an excerpt from von Sternberg’s 1965 auto­biography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, on actor Emil Jannings
Covers by F. Ron Miller


Emil Jannings won the first best actor Academy Award for his performance as a sympathetic tyrant: an exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra who lands a role playing a version of his former tsarist self, bringing about his emotional downfall. Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command is a brilliantly realized silent melodrama and a witty send-up of the Hollywood machine, featuring virtuoso cinematography, grandly designed sets and effects, and rousing Russian Revolution sequences. Towering above it all is the passionate, heartbreaking Jannings, whose portrayal of a man losing his grip on reality is one for the history books.

Tags

Links