Mockery

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Audience Member ok drama once lost but re-found Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member "The revolution is on the stairs!" It's not uncritical of the ruling classes, aristocratic or bourgeois/capitalist. Though, strangely (being a Hollywood film), it's rather more critical of the latter than the former. And it views revolution/revolutionaries as crime/criminals. It downplays/ignores economic causes in favor of psychological motives/characterizations/stereotypes/prejudices. It falsely portrays the peasant (and the poorest peasant at that) as getting won over to the aristocratic/whiteguard side, rewriting history as reactionary wish-fulfillment. A mockery, then, especially of the proletarian and peasant side, the revolutionary side, of the Russian Civil War. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review eric b Transformed into a swarthy, mono-browed peasant, the incredible Lon Chaney leads this story based in historical Russia. Chaney is Sergei, a none-too-bright vagrant who happens upon a beautiful but plainly dressed woman in the forest. She needs an escort to the town of Novokursk and asks him to temporarily pose as her husband. Eventually, the truth comes out: She is a countess hoping to travel unnoticed. This situation becomes the excuse for Chaney's typical vehicle as the doomed misfit who loves a woman far beyond his station. Countess Tatiana (Barbara Bedford) arrives in Novokursk to stay with the wealthy Gaidaroff family, and finds Sergei a trivial job at the mansion. But he is not satisfied with this, having been grandly promised that he and Tatiana would be friends forever. He falls under the spell of another servant who is caught up in the dogma of the coming revolution (just wait until you see this actor's grotesque mug). Driven into a rebellious frenzy, Sergei becomes more aggressive with Tatiana. And this is where the film squanders its appeal. We're left without a sympathetic hero. The story would have worked better if it had opened with Tatiana as the main character -- a kind noblewoman who meets a troubled brute while trying to complete a difficult journey. But Chaney was the marketable star, not Bedford. "Mockery" doesn't test Chaney's acting powers as much as his top work, but the film is short and hence not much of a chore to muddle through. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member pretty goood melodrama Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Fast-moving and poignant. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Mockery

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