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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937)

A secret agent (William Powell) in the employ of Polish insurgents is carrying a secret letter addressed to the Czar of Russia. At the same time, a Russian secret agent (Luise Rainer) is secretly carrying a letter with orders to arrest the Polish agent on sight. By a mishap, each agent hides their letter in the secret compartment of a candlestick but the candlesticks are stolen and it's a race against time to retrieve them. Based on the novel by Baroness Orczy (THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL) and directed by George Fitzmaurice (RAFFLES). This was Rainer's follow up film to her Oscar winning turn in THE GOOD EARTH and she's perfectly cast. It's a nice combination of spy movie and romantic comedy and reunited with her GREAT ZIEGFELD co-star Powell, it's a an above average entertainment. So enjoyable in fact that one can forgive the movie's dubious deus ex machina conclusion. Apparently, the public also enjoyed it enough to place it in MGM's profit column. With Robert Young, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Morgan, Henry Stephenson and Douglass Dumbrille.

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