Knight Without Armour

Reality never held much sway at Korda's Denham studios, least of all during the making of this lavishly preposterous melodrama of Russian life before and after the 1917 Revolution. Dietrich is the cool, fur-swathed Countess Vladinoff, who strips down for two titillating baths during her protracted rush to freedom organised by much-bearded Donat, who pretends to be a Russian Commissar but is actually AJ Fothergill, British secret agent. Feyder's typically stylish direction raises the film way above its subject matter, almost at times towards art.