Even the most casual movie fans are familiar with Russia's Lev Kuleshov and his students, including Sergei Eisenstein, attending the Moscow Film School in the early 1920s, making editing (montage) their primary focus in film productions. However, there was a group of Russian filmmakers who left the Motherland immediately after the Bolsheviks overthrow of the Czar in late 1917 who made an impact in cinema. Relocating several times in different countries, these creative directors, writers, editors and set designers eventually settled in Paris, France, where they were embraced by the French art community.
Leading these Russian filmmakers was director Viktor Tourjansky. A big fan of Jules Verne, he and a team of fellow-country scriptwriters adapted the author's 1876 novel to produce his epic, June 1926's "Michel Strogoff." The movie follows a Russian messenger who goes undercover to deliver a crucial message to the Czarist troops holding out against the invading Tartars in Siberia. Along the way, Strogoff falls in love with a train passenger who's on her way to visit her father in the contested region.
Tourjanksy worked with a team of set designers, including Alexandre Kochakoff and Pierre Schild, to duplicate the interiors of mid-century Russia. "Michel Strogoff" features a bevy of spectacular battle scenes between the Russian and Tartar armies. The Latvian government supplied 4,000 troops to showcase the colossal fighting sequences, creating a number of confrontations so realistic the viewer might think they are the real deal.
The nearly three-hour epic also employs a troupe of ex-Ruskies who worked in the Paris community. One of Russia's most popular actor, Ivan Mosjoukine, joined the exile train and is the lead in "Michel Strogoff." His movie career, beginning in 1911, carried over to France where he became a star. Ironically, a clip of an old film having him starring into the camera was used by Kuleshov to demonstrate his famous Kuleshov Effect. Nathalie Kovanko plays his love interest. She was director Tourjansky's wife and appeared in only three films.
"Michel Strogoff" incorporates several color sequences, beginning with an enormous dancing scene with a multitude of aristocratic couples waltzing away. Another color portion is towards the end of the movie when Strogoff is captured by the Tarters. The color technology used in the movie incorporated an age-old technique of cutting a stencil for each stable scene and tinting them in a variety of colors. The look almost equals the two-color process Technicolor introduced to celluloid during the mid-1920s.
Tourjansky continued to work his genius behind the camera, assisting Abel Gance in his 1927 classic "Napoleon." He later worked in Germany and Italy into the early 1960s. He directed the 1961 famous remake of "Michel Strogoff" with Curt Jurgens. Ten movies on the Verne subject followed Tourjansky's 1926's pioneering film, reflecting how popular Jules' story became in cinema.
