Tatjana (1937)

Tatjana: Directed by Jacques Feyder. With Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, Irene Vanbrugh, Herbert Lomas. After two years as a Czarist British agent posing as a Russian Commissar, he rescues a Russian countess from her Bolshevik captors.

“Knight Without Armour finds Robert Donat as a British agent, fluent in Russian, sent to spy on the revolutionary movement even before World War I started. Such things were done Iu0026#39;m sure as farsighted folks in the Foreign Office probably saw Europe headed for general war and Russia would have been the United Kingdomu0026#39;s ally in that case.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDonat plays his part all too well, heu0026#39;s captured as a revolutionary and sent to Siberia and spends most of World War I there. Whatever else it does it certainly helps his cover. The original revolution that brought Kerensky to power frees the political prisoners and Donat now has to try and make his way home.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn a parallel story aristocrat Marlene Dietrich gets the shock of her life when one day she wakes up and her servants have fled because the Russian Revolution has come to town. From hero{ine} to zero overnight, sheu0026#39;s got to get out of a country thatu0026#39;s now shooting her kind on general principles.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThey become allies of convenience and of course the shared experience of escape forges a romance as well. Both turn out to be pretty clever at taking advantages of breaks as they are captured a couple of times during the film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRobert Donat was one of the few of her leading men to not fall under Dietrichu0026#39;s amorous sway. But they became good friends and according to a recent biography of Marlene, Dietrich helped Donat with a special breathing technique she learned about to help control his asthma. Donat suffered from asthma all his life and it eventually killed him.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film is based on a lesser known work of British novelist James Hilton who also wrote Random Harvest and Lost Horrizon and of course Goodbye Mr. Chips for which Donat won his Academy Award for. It seems as though Hilton wrote his books with either Robert Donat or Ronald Colman in mind for the screen, they played his heroes so well.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn screen Knight Without Armour suits the images and talents of Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich well and fans of both will appreciate it.”