Movie Reviewed: Scarlet Dawn, Starring Douglas Fairbank, Jr., and Nancy Carroll
This is a family drama of a Russian Baron Nikita Krasnoff and his household servant Tanyusha (Nancy Carroll). The movie illustrates the plight of wealthy Russians during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Survival and slipping out of the country to Turkey with whatever wealth they can carry was the biggest challenge in their lives.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and household servant Nancy Carroll who later becomes his wife trek on foot to Turkey. They go through a difficult married life with some domestic violence and initial sexual harassment. Krasnoff works as a dishwasher and Tanyusha scrubs floors at a hospital for living. When restaurant patron Vera Zimina (Lilyan Tashman) finds her ex-lover Krasnoff working as a busboy, she seduces him and steals from his wife and then set him up a dirty moneymaking scheme. When Krasnoff realizes that his true love is for Tanyusha, he will go looking for her. Finally the Turkish police catch up with both of them and deport back to Russia where they have to face a grim future.
This movie makes me remember Clark Gable’s “Gone with the Wind,” that deals with domestic issues during the American Civil War. Fairbanks does his best as a man in control of things but it is Nancy Carroll who offers an excellent performance as an abused woman. Lilyan Tashman was a confirmed lesbian in early Hollywood and she made no secret of her sexuality, yet her role as a sexy man-snatching woman is somewhat hard to swallow. The music by Harry Warren is rich especially the one played during the wedding ceremony. This movie was great when it was released in 1932 but the domestic issues dealt in this movie could bother some viewers. This movie is highly recommended to all the fans of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Nancy Carroll and Lilyan Tashman.
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