Akim Tamiroff Movies

A Scandal in Paris is a liberal adaptation of the life story of Eugène François Vidocq, who was French prefect of police during the Napoleonic era. George Sanders stars as Vidocq, who spends most of the film as an aimless rogue willing to lie, cheat, and steal for his own comfort. The women who affect Vidocq's life include a saucy cabaret entertainer (Carole Landis) for whom Vidocq steals, and a good woman (Signe Hasso) for whom he straightens himself out. Fledgling director Douglas Sirk displayed his love of the Baroque (both in decor and characterizations) that would distinguish his later high-budget Universal soap operas. Most prints of A Scandal in Paris bear the film's alternate title, Thieves' Holiday. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a Jules Verne novel, Adventures of Michael Strogoff stars Anton Walbrook in the title role. Strogoff is the personal courier of the Russian Czar, sent to Siberia with vital information that will help win the war against the Tartars. Captured by a Tartar prince, Strogoff is sentenced to be blinded, but not before being permitted to witness the beautiful sights he'll never see again...including an elaborate dance sequence choreographed to the tunes of Rimsky-Korsakov. Apparently sightless, Strogoff completes his mission, but happily his blindness was only a pose to allow him safe conduct. Adventures of Michael Strogoff was originally produced in France, with a German-language version filmed simultaneously. RKO secured the services of the film's star Anton Walbrook, lifted the major battle sequences from the European version, reshot most of the plot footage in Hollywood (with added comedy relief in the form of Thomas Mitchell and Eric Blore), and released the results as The Soldier and the Lady. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard fuses a hardboiled detective story with science fiction. Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), a hero Godard borrowed from a series of French adventure films, comes to Alphaville, the capital of a totalitarian state, in order to destroy its leader, an almost-human computer called Alpha 60. While on his mission, Lemmy meets and falls in love with Natacha (Anna Karina), the daughter of the scientist who designed Alpha 60. Their love becomes the most profound challenge to the computer's control. Void of any flashy special effects, Alphaville uses 1960s Paris to depict the city of the future. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

When David O. Selznick produced the film version of the 1000-plus page novel Gone with the Wind, he declared he could not make a film running any less than 222 minutes. When Warner Bros. adapted the even longer Hervey Allen best-seller Anthony Adverse, the studio managed to pack everything--except the most censorable passages, which had made Allen's novel a best-seller in the first place--into 139 minutes. Surprisingly, the film version of Anthony Adverse moves rather smoothly, though it is nowhere near as involving (or as much fun) as Gone with the Wind. Fredric March stars as Anthony Adverse, the illegitimate offspring of Anita Louise, the wife of Spanish nobleman Claude Rains. When Adverse comes of age, he inherits the prosperous business run by his kindly foster father Edmund Gwenn, which he abandons for an aimless trip around the world after his heart is broken by childhood sweetheart Olivia De Havilland. Sinking deeper into the morass of alcohol and degeneracy in the West Indies, Adverse is regenerated when he is reunited with De Havilland, now the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. Suddenly enervated, Adverse battles the efforts of Claude Rains and Gwenn's duplicitous former assistant Gale Sondergaard to take over Gwenn's business. Along the way, he learns that Gwenn was actually his grandfather and that De Havilland has born him a son (Scotty Beckett). Instead of dying, as he does in the novel, Anthony Adverse takes his son to America to start life anew. Whew! Though no award winner itself, Anthony Adverse enabled Gale Sondergaard to win the first-ever "best supporting actress" Oscar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like many 1930s Warner Bros. films, Black Fury drew its inspiration from the headlines. The story is adapted from a true-life incident from 1929, wherein a striking Pennsylvania coal miner was beaten to death by three company detectives; this served as the focus for Henry R. Irving's stage play Bohunk as well as Judge M. A. Musmanno's story Jan Volkanik, both of which were woven into Black Fury's screenplay. Using a Polish accent so thick one can cut it with scissors, Paul Muni plays an illiterate miner, happy in his job and his company-town surroundings until his girl Karen Morley deserts him for policeman William Gargan. A disconsolate, drunken Muni stumbles into a labor meeting, where his loud, unthinking outbursts win him the leadership of the new miner's union. When the company locks out the strikers and brings in scabs, the angry miners hold the thick-headed Muni responsible. Fellow miner John Qualen, Muni's best friend, is then killed by a gang of rampaging hired goons. Vowing to "feex" the situation, Muni kidnaps head goon Barton MacLaine and takes him into the bowels of the mine with several sticks of dynamite in tow. Muni threatens to blow himself, MacLaine, and the mine to smithereens unless management comes to terms with the union. Thanks to overwhelming public support, the owners capitulate, and Muni is the hero of the hour. Though it seemed uncompromising in 1935, Black Fury obviously pulls its punches when seen today; for example, it is suggested that the mine owners are guiltless regarding violence against the strikers, laying blame on the hired detectives, who are shown to be in the employ of a crook who plays both sides against the other. Even allowing for this, Black Fury is one of the most powerful of Warners' "social conscience" films. Although the Academy gave Muni a Best Supporting Actor nod for this film, the AMPAS database indicates that it wasn't an "official nomination" - he was a write-in candidate, and came in second. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bouncing back and forth between American and European productions in the 1950s, director Steve Sekely settled in Italy long enough to dash off Cartouche. The swashbuckling title character, played by Richard Basehart, is an 18th-century gentleman accused of murdering a prince. In the tradition of Scaramouche, Cartouche takes refuge with a troupe of wandering actors. Villains Akim Tamiroff and Massimo Serato do their best to knock off Cartouche, but he gets the better of them in reel eight. English leading-lady Patricia Roc displays mucho cleavage as Cartouche's sweetheart. Cartouche was fitfully distributed in the USA by RKO Radio Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Gable's former loves, aristocratic Rosalind Russell, shows up. Wallace Beery plays Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer. Harlow tumbles to Beery's secret, but is unable to convince Gable, who is sore at Harlow for mean-mouthing Russell. Out of pique, Harlow casts her lot with the crooked Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by Crosbie Garstin, China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by MGM producer Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, to wealthy men, whose money came from blackmail schemes find themselves stalked by a former victim. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A dated melodrama set around the year zero in the Christian calendar, Desert Desperadoes by director Steve Sekely focuses on a caravan trying to reach the city of Alexandria under adverse conditions. The caravan is headed by a wealthy merchant (Akim Tamiroff) and appears to be carrying a precious infant along with lesser cargo. Roman soldiers provide an escort, and when the caravan picks up a sensual woman stranded in the middle of nowhere, the merchant begins to take a manly interest in her. His attentions compete with those of a Roman soldier, as the caravan continues along its eventful journey. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this frothy romantic adventure, Marlene Dietrich plays Madeleine de Beaupre, a devious jewel thief. After sneaking a valuable string of pearls away from jeweler Aristide Duval (Ernest Cossart), Madeleine attempts to flee Paris, leaving a trail that will instead implicate psychiatrist Dr. Pauquet (Alan Mowbray). While headed for the Spanish border, she nearly runs into Tom Bradley (Gary Cooper), an American auto engineer vacationing in Europe. Madeleine spots Tom again as she waits to go through Spanish Customs; worried that the stolen pearls will be found in her handbag, she slips them into Tom's pocket. After they both make their way through inspection unscathed, Madeleine flirts with Tom in an attempt to get the valuables back; he's too shy to respond in kind, so she gets his attention by trying to "repair" the engine of her car with a hammer. Madeleine lures Tom to the San Sebastian estate of her partner in crime, Carlos Margoli (John Halliday). It doesn't take long for Tom to figure out what Madeleine and Carlos are up to; however, he also knows that he's fallen in love with her, and he is willing to play along if it allows him to be near her. Carlos was originally to have been played by John Gilbert; Halliday was a last-minute replacement after the one-time silent screen star died a week before shooting was to begin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Over the course of his lifetime, the legendary director Orson Welles (1915-1985) was forced to leave many of his grander movie-making projects unfinished, generally for want of sustained financial backing. Each successive unfinished effort generated buzz throughout the worshipful film community that only served to brighten the luster of his legend. Thus it was only a matter of time before one of his many admirers bought the rights to the fairly extensive footage he shot for his film Don Quixote (begun in 1955) and attempted to edit it into some semblance of a finished film, based on research into Welles' stated intentions and notes. A fuzzy, out-of-focus print of the resulting film was shown at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, and it was immediately deemed as a hashed-up job, a travesty bordering on the sacrilegious, by the assembled deeply interested and knowledgeable viewers. Their criticism focused mainly on issues that ordinary viewers would deem excessively technical, but the gist of it was that this was a very un-Wellesian use of Welles' footage. However, the film does offer viewers a unique opportunity to see some of the master's mature story ideas onscreen. In addition to footage from the film, the movie is also a kind of semi-documentary homage to Welles, showing footage of the famed director at work. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Jealousy between the men in love with one woman cannot be contained by the woman. ~ All Movie Guide