"The Last Command" is a story about a Russian general's reversal of fortune, who in ten years goes from leading the Czar's army in World War One to being picked to play the role of an extra in a movie directed by former "revolutionist" Lev Andreyev (William Powell), who now rules a Hollywood sound stage. While Emil Jannings got the Academy Award for playing the general, it is my opinion that Powell's performance as Andreyev is what drives this movie forward. Director Andreyev plucks the general from obscurity in the present, a Hollywood extra, and gives him a small movie role as a general. In this movie, Powell plays his part in a deadly serious manner. Not one smile, no snippy comments. But then you think, why did he hire the former general, who ten years earlier as as a real general had arrested Andreyev, belted him with a riding crop for being insolent and then had him locked up. The only answer is in the phrase "turnabout is fair play." Andreyev's plan to degrade the general went awry when he saw that the general stayed true to character, defending Russia to the end, even in a fictional battle on a Hollywood sound stage. Ten years after the fall of Czarist Russia, Hollywood made this movie that deals in the human wreckage left by the Russian Revolution. Andreyev, the former Kiev theater director, survived the revolution and prospered but his fellow conspirator and possible main squeeze Natalia died in a train wreck. Powell played the part right, he had grim memories of the revolution. His "joke," casting the former (and destitute) general as a Hollywood general, had not turned out the way he thought it would. "The Last Command" is an example of Hollywood professionals using a fictional story to make a movie that casts a spotlight on the real world. A spotlight helped by the details tossed in showing the movie's version of present day Hollywood: the crowd of extras scrabbling at the studio window to pick up their uniforms; the assistant directors hovering over movie director Andreyev and trying to be the one to light his cigarette; the camera in the final scene panning back from the sound stage to show the movie cameras set up to film the movie within a movie. William Powell's role is the thread that links the events in this movie, as the director and, in the long flashback, as the revolutionist whose partner Natalia hooks up with the general. These days, Hollywood stays away from movies like "The Last Command," way too serious and cynical.
Review of The Last Command
