Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

one of my absolute favorites!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is absolutely useless for me to review this movie, because this site has made all viewer reviews useless. We can no longer find reviews from viewers who loved the movie, or felt neutral about the movie, or hated the movie. From now on all the reviews are listed simply one after the other without any reason whatsoever. For movies with tons of reviews, you are forced to scroll down endlessly in order to find anything. Up yours, IMDb.

Totally implausible/ridiculous but good fun. A pre-Charlie Chan Warner Oland, a Swede, is Russian this time. He's bent on revenge and hams it up all the way.Neither Oland or the other Russian characters utter a word of Russian. The fleeing royals reach New York and bump into an ingenue and her peppery aunt who, of course, shelter the strangers in their country house. Wouldn't you?The lights go out more than once. The phone is dead. A claw-like hand jumps out of the curtain to grab the girl. Stuff used a thousand times. The plot creaks and the print used for the DVD is battered, but you could do worse for an early talkie.Mischa Auer lurks around in a pre-screwball role.

The movie starts very melodramatically, with a young woman in bed, tended by her mother, apparently dying. The reason for her deterioration is never stated, though it has to do with her relationship with some man. The acting here is poor. Her father (get this, his name is Boris Karlov, played by Warner Oland, acting like an evil Charlie Chan) enters, and demands the name of the man responsible, but his daughter refuses. A necklace, The Drums of Jeopardy, falls from under the bed covers, which he recognizes as belonging to the Petrovs, and vows revenge.The movie and acting get better in the second act as the Petrovs come to America, fleeing the Bolshevik revolution. Karlov, working for the Bolsheviks, is in America already, and waiting for them. The Petrov sons escape Karlov twice, and flee to a country mansion on a dark and stormy night. Karlov and his goons are right behind.This is an very 1930s movie with plot elements, and plot holes, typical of the period. The escaping Petrovs meet and are aided by a rich New York family. Karlov has a bullet-proof vest that defies Newton's third law of motion.Clara Blandick, playing the matron of the New York family, shines while providing some humor.

I like the movie, for what it is. I would like to see the earlier version, and compare. I've always thought of Warner Oland as kind of a ham. But it's impossible to judge by 1931 standards in 2007, so what do I know? The Karlov question had me curious. This is what Wikipedia had to say (yeah, I know-- it's Wikipedia, so who knows if it's true?): "In 1922 the book was made into a Broadway play and the following year a motion picture. A second film version appeared in 1931. It is said that a young Boris Karloff, who previously had a few uncredited film roles, chose his stage name for his first screen credit in 1920 from a Russian mad scientist character named "Boris Karlov" in this novel. The name 'Boris Karlov' was used from MacGrath's book for the 1922 Broadway play, but by 1923 with actor Boris Karloff using the similar sounding variation, the film version renamed the character, played by Wallace Beery, 'Gregor Karlov'. In the 1931 film version, however, with Warner Oland playing the character, the mad scientist's name is restored to 'Boris Karlov', less than a year before Frankenstein would make Boris Karloff a household word for generations. Ironically, Boris Karloff would play many mad scientists on screen, but never 'Boris Karlov'."As a side note for those interested in original sources, the Harold MacGrath novel "Drums of Jeopardy" is available as a free e-text download at Project Gutenberg.