Tempest (1927-28)

 

One of the key delights of watching Tempest is seeing the great John Barrymore on film. He does, indeed, have a great profile, and he’s also a wonderful film actor. Why he was never considered for an acting Oscar remains a mystery. In this film, which is most definitely not an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Barrymore plays Sgt. Ivan Markov, a dragoon who is ambitious to receive a commission as an officer, an unlikely event given that he is a “peasant” and the officers all seem to be aristocrats. The film pivots on the transitional era from the tsarist era to the revolutionary era in Russia, and there’s even a socialist recruiter – for lack of a better phrase – who looks like a dried-up version of Rasputin and who sports a big gap where a tooth should be. Markov gets his commission on the day that he meets Princess Tamara (Camilla Horn), who just happens to be the daughter of the general who has been his champion (George Fawcett) and the fiancée of the captain who has been his biggest antagonist (Ullrich Haupt). She’s not particularly fond of Markov, thinking his status as a peasant is beneath her attention. He winds up in her bedroom, drunk, with a bouquet of flowers and a locket that he’s engraved “I Love You, Ivan.” Why he’s fallen in love with her is not quite clear; she’s been very condescending and exhibited nothing but disdain for him. And, yet, we all know that she’s probably either also in love with him or at least intrigued by him. These plots are easy to follow now that we’ve seen them replicated hundreds of times. Markove gets stripped of his commission and sentenced to prison as a result of his actions. Silent film actors had to master the art of closeups, and Barrymore was exceptionally good at facial expressions. For example, he’s much more subtle playing drunk than most actors tend to be. When his character is left behind, alone, in the prison after everyone else has been “recruited” for battle, he becomes more haggard and delusional. When Markov and the Princess find their roles reversed after the revolutionaries win, Barrymore is very tender and sweet in his scenes with Horn. Louis Wolheim plays Sgt. Bulba, Ivan’s best friend who gets himself kicked out of the army so that he can join his friend in prison and do hard labor. I know that Wolheim’s character is meant to be comic relief, but getting yourself sentenced to hard labor is going a bit far for a friendship, isn’t it? Tempest features a number of interesting camera tricks, such as when writing in Russian dissolves into English and when the camera looks through the bottom of the glass that Markov has emptied (again) at the Princess’ birthday party. The film is satisfying entertainment on many levels, and it’s certainly a good choice to watch if you’d like to see why Barrymore got so much attention.  

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