Ken Malone Dancer Choreographer Destry Rides Again

Charles Butterworth, John Barrymore

Karimsky, Vladimir Ivan Tsarakov

We meet our mad genius on a rainy dark in a circus tent in the European countryside. Our mad genius is a puppet master, literally and figuratively. While John Barrymore every bit Ivan Tsarakov and his assistant Karimsky played by Charles Butterworth manipulate the marionettes in their ballet, they play to an audience of one.

Frankie Darro

Fedor

Young Fedor played past Frankie Darro, looking younger than his 14 years, is an abused youngster finding solace in the pretty dancing puppets. His reverie is interrupted by the arrival of his father with a whip. The boy's dexterity at running and leaping to avert punishment intrigues Tsarakov, so he hides the male child from the hardhearted father played by Boris Karloff. The gild-footed Tsarakov takes the boy nether his fly as an adopted son. Himself, the son of a premiere ballerina, Tsarakov was blest with a genius for dance, a desire to dance, and the disability to practice so because of his disability. He will pour his appetite and knowledge into the youngster and live his dreams through Fedor.

Luis Alberni, Donald Cook, Marian Marsh

Sergei Bankieff, Fedor, Nana Carlova

The passage of time has brought the Tsarakov ballet company and its acclaimed lead dancer, Fedor success in Berlin. Karimsky all the same dutifully plays the office of Tsarakov's assistant. Fedor, now played by Donald Melt, idolizes his father/mentor and unquestionably follows all of his orders. The only cleft in the relationship is Fedor'due south growing love for the sugariness dancer Nana Carlova played by Marian Marsh. Nana has too defenseless the eye of the ballet's wealthy patron Count Renaud played by Andre Luguet. Still her heart belongs to Fedor. Life could not be more than perfect for the immature leading human being of the company.

John Barrymore

Tsarakov

Tsarakov, all the same, tin encounter his control of Fedor slipping away. Tsarakov is of the business firm, and somewhat maniacal, opinion that love has no place in the life of the true artist. If he is to be the greatest dancer the globe has ever seen, Fedor's whole eye and soul must be devoted to his art. Tsarakov sees nothing incorrect with flings. He enjoys working his way through the women in the corps de ballet, and sees no reason Fedor cannot emulate that mental attitude.

Tsarakov slyly appeals to Fedor'south vanity and obligation:

"You lot can be i of the greatest artistes in the earth. What more could anyone enquire?"

Luis Alberni

Sergei

Tsarakov controls his trip the light fantastic master Sergei played past Luis Alberni through encouraging and using Sergei's cocaine addiction. Threatening to withhold the necessities, he forces Sergei to sign a scathing rebuke of Nana'south dance abilities to coerce her resignation from the company. Tsarakov suggests a change in career as the mistress of Count Renaud. Fedor overhears Tsarakov's manipulation of Nana and his cruel words:

"If you dearest him at all you will go way and not murder the career of a genius."

Tsarakov's attitude is not dissimilar to that of Lermontov, the taskmaster of Powell and Pressburger'sThe Red Shoes played by Anton Walbrook. His advice to ballerina Victoria Page played by Moira Shearer in that pic:

"You cannot accept it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the hundred-to-one comforts of homo love tin never be a great dancer. Never"

Donald Cook, Marian Marsh

Fedor and Nana

Fedor and Nana walk out on Tsarakov and are happy for a time in Paris. However, every job as a dancer is closed to Fedor when Tsarakov advises various managements of the exclusivity of their contract. When Fedor at concluding has come to working in a waterfront dive, Tsarakov takes advantage of Nana'southward depth of feeling to gratuitous Fedor and have him return to the fold.

Donald Cook

Fedor

Once more nether Tsarakov's influence, the kindly Fedor takes on the gruff manners of his mentor. Nana, who has moved on with Count Renaud finds him a more than kindly "employer" than expected. He understands the plight of the immature lovers and takes her to the company'south opening dark dorsum in Berlin. It is at the successful premiere of a new ballet that everything comes to a violent conclusion.

Spoiler ahead :

The Tsarakov Company's triumphant return to Berlin.

The massive set includes a demon idol which sends Sergei over the edge in a drug fueled frenzy causing him to take an ax to the ready. Tsarakov is every bit maddened every bit the dance principal because Fedor has seen Nana in the audition and knows nada, non fifty-fifty dance, is worth the loss of true dearest.

A shadowy showdown between Sergei and Tsarkov leads to the death of the mad genius. The drapery opens on his lifeless corpse causing panic throughout the audience. Through the uproar, Fedor and Nana find each other, and the always loyal Karmisky sits disconsolate beside the torso of his friend.

Tsarakov meets his fate.

The Mad Genius was based on a play chosen The Idol by Canadian built-in Martin Chocolate-brown. Brown was a successful Broadway playwright and lyricist, and a ane fourth dimension dancer. This melodrama was not one of his phase successes. Withal, information technology made a fine Barrymore vehicle as a follow-upward to the successful Svengali. The screenplay is by J. Grubb Alexander (Svengali, The Hatchet Man) and Harvey F. Thew (The Public Enemy, She Done Him Wrong).

Michael Curtiz directed his only collaboration with Barrymore. Typical of Curtiz'south work, the movie is well paced with many interesting shots of characters which silently comment on their relationships.

Fine art direction is from multiple Oscar nominee Anton Grot (The Ocean Hawk, Anthony Adverse, etc.) and he gives the states an eyeful of over-the-elevation theatrical sets and apartments from the lavish to the simple. Earl Luick (Springtime in the Rockies, Union Depot) is credited with designing the gowns, and then I presume Grot may have been behind the ballet costumes, at least the headdresses which disguise the trip the light fantastic toe doubles for Donald Cook (Charles Weidman) and Marian Marsh.

Adolph Bolm, born in St. Petersburgh and a graduate of the Russian Regal Ballet School became a choreographer after an injury ended his dancing career during a tour of the United states of america. His work on this motion picture, and others like The Diplomacy of Cellini and The Corsican Brothers combined with his work for ballet and opera companies.

Similar his Svengali, simply amend dressed, Barrymore is mesmerizing equally the single-minded Tsarakov. If the co-stars tin bring themselves to his level of commitment, they accept plenty of room to do and so. Charles Butterworth'southward hesitant characterization works to almost humanize the mad genius. Luis Alberni, a lifelong second banana in second features, shows his mettle as the broken Sergei.

For me, The Mad Genius is a must-run into for John Barrymore fans and a fine complement to the earlier Barrymore/Marsh moving-picture showSvengali. Perhaps, like me, you volition discover this even more to your taste than the famous earlier moving picture.

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Source: https://www.caftanwoman.com/2017/08/en-pointe-ballet-blogathon-mad-genius.html

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