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what i saw was in rough shape this one is begging for a restoration.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
Warner Oland plays Boris Karlov--A Very Enjoyable 65 Minutes!!
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
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Audience Member
Sometime in the early twenties, The Drums of Jeopardy was made into a film. It was based on a novel of the same name and became so popular at the time that a stage play helped spawn the film. It wasn't until 1931 when another film version was made starring Warner Oland. In the film he plays a scientist who seeks revenge for the death of his daughter, Anya. His daughter was messing around with one of the princes of the Petroff family that is until they dishonored her and left her with the drums of Petroff. The drums as they were are the families jewels. It's said that anyone who is given these jewels are to be cursed. Anya was given these jewels and dies as a result.
Her father vows to kill off every Petroff member. When he escapes from prison, his vengeance begins as he becomes part of the Bolshevik revolution where the Czars have ended and the noble families of Russia, like the Petroff's, are being hunted. So, the Petroff's are exiled and set out to America for a better life. However, they must deal with the revenge of Dr. Boris Karlov. Yes. Boris Karlov. This film is infamous for having a character whose name sounds like the actor Boris Karloff.
Now this isn't a horror movie, but more of a story of crime with a hint of mystery. Karlov is your typical vengeance seeking father in the same vein of Charles Bronson except with a laboratory. One of the most interesting aspects of this film is how it plays around with genres. At first you get a crime story with revenge being it's catalyst then it moves into murder mystery terroritory when the rest of the Petroff's hold up in a mansion during a dark and stormy night. Very playful I thought. It's a forgotten classic for sure and an nice hour and five minutes to pass by.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
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Audience Member
Though it doesn't get the respect as much as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Public Enemy or Little Caesar, this film was every bit as engaging. It was clearly made with a much lower budget than those other movies, which were all made in the same year. Warner Oland is great as a man driven to madness over mourning for his daughter's death. I wish that more people had seen this.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
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Audience Member
When one of the men of the Petrov family makes his daugher pregnant, dumps her, and causes her to commit suicide, but then won't own up to his misdeed, Dr. Boris Karlov (Oland) sets out to gain revenge by seeing them all dead. He persues them halfway around the world, to America, where a secret service agent (Hamilton) and a feisty young American woman (Collyer) end up in the middle of this Russian struggle for survival and revenge.
"Drums of Jeopardy" is a nifty little thriller from the early takes of talkies that's jam-packed with meldodrama, action, and humor. Its fast-paced script hardly gives the viewers a chance to realize that just about everything in this film has become almost painfully cliche in the nearly eighty years since its original release, nor does it pause long enough to really let us consider how outrageous and dimwitted the "brilliant" plan of the Federal Agents who match wits with Karlov is. We're too busy hating the slimy Russian nobleman Prince Gregor (Wallace MacDonald) who not only impregnated and dumped a poor girl, refuses to live up to what he's done and ultimately tries to sell out everyone else to save his own skin; admiring the beauty of the resourceful young Kitty Connover (June Collyer), snickering at the comic relief provided by her sharp-tongued aunt (Clara Blandick in one of her best roles), and grinning with sinister glee as Dr. Karlov delivers zingers and pulls tricks on the good guys that allows him to take a place among the great villains of movie history 's zingers as his evil plans fall into place (an honor deserved in no small part due to an excellent performance by character actor Warner Oland who is best remembered or playing Charlie Chan and for his role in "Werewolf of London").
Another remarkable aspect of this film that sets it apart from many of its contemporaries is that it has a villain that the viewer can relate to. His daughter [i]was[/i] violated and tossed aside by the Petrovs, so, given that this is a melodramatic thriller and we're talking about Russians here, it's only natural he'd take elaborate and final revenge against not only the Petrovs but Russian nobility in general. Karlov is a character who is almost like a tragic hero in his stature within this film and he is must more interesting than most film villains from the early days of film.
I should note that as much as I enjoyed this film, I was a little dissapointed in some apsects of how the story unfolded. I've already commented on the moronic nature of the government agents in the film, but a bigger dissapointment was that Karlov didn't really get his full revenge and we don't get to see that rat bastard Gregor die a slow and painful death. (That alone makes me wish for a remake of this movie. I'd love to see Tim Thomerson as Karlov!)
Speaking of Karlov... yes, the villain of this movie is named Boris Karlov. Given that this film is based on an American novel that was originally published in 1920, I think we can chalk this up to one of those weird coincidences. Karloff was an obscure stage actor touring Canadian backwaters at the time the book was written.
"The Drums of Jeopardy" is one of those forgotten, almost lost classics that's been saved and preserved by advent of the DVD. It's a film that definately deserves to be seen, and I think Alpha Video has done us a real service by making it available. It's worth looking past the imperfections of the old print in order to experience it.
The film is available from Amazon.com for $8, less than what a movie ticket costs. And, frankly, it's actually a better film than some of the crap you'd see in the theaters. You can read more reviews of it at Amazon, so you don't just have to take my word for it. [URL=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002HODNQ?ie=UTF8&tag=stevemillesdo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0002HODNQ]Click here[/URL] to check out the listing.
The Drums of Jeopardy
Starring: Warner Oland, June Collyer, Lloyd Hughes, Hale Hamilton, Wallace MacDonald, Clara Blandick, Mischa Auer, Ernest Hilliard, and Florence Lake
Director: George B. Seitz
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
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