David_Brown This movie is important because of course, it is the only one that had all three Barrymores. But it is really Johm's Film. Every scene he is in he steals. Spoiler: In particular the scene where the young Czarevitch bites him, and the final fight against Rasputin. What is amazing is everyone else in this film is either naive or totally evil. John's Paul Chegodieff is the only one who is neither. I have never seen a Barrymore silent film (When everyone says he was at his best), but I have seen most of his talkies, and he is always good. Lionel's Rasputin is way over the top and Ethel, even though it was supposed to be history, essentially plays the same kind of character we saw in "Kind Lady", and the "Portrait of Jenny". I give it 5 out of 10 stars, mostly for John.

gjampol This could have been a true classic. However, it strays far from actual events and abridges the period between the outbreak of the Great War and the killing of the royal family.The three Barrymores -- Lionel, Ethel and John -- are fine as Rasputin, the Empress and Prince Paul, a fictional character who assassinates Rasputin (the real assassin was Prince Feliks Yusupov, who was distressed by the damage that Rasputin was doing to the public image of the royal family).The film correctly shows how Rasputin was interfering with the government and the execution of the Great War. But we don't actually see any sign of the February and October revolutions and the abdication of the czar. In the movie, the royal family is taken by train to a house where they are shot by the Bolsheviks. All of these events happen so suddenly in the film that a casual viewer would lose sense of the chronology.Moreover, the direction is poor and many scenes last too long, making the movie drag.

longrush While this film may be of interest to film purists because of the three Barrymores together for the only time, the movie is lousy history. The acting is more than a bit overdone, a carryover perhaps from the silent days when double takes and facial quirks had to tell the story. Rasputin's death is inaccurate. He was probably not poisoned at all (as an ascetic, he did not eat sweets, poisoned or otherwise), and he was shot several times, not hit over the head with a poker. And the deaths of the Romanovs was not outside in a courtyard but in a closed, dingy cellar. Their doctor died with them--he didn't escape to London. However, in defense of the screenwriter, many of the details of the Rasputin/Romanov disaster were unknown until after the fall of the Soviet Union. Several books published since, including photographs of Rasputin's dead body, for example, do much to fill out the real story.

Pat-54 The only film that all three Barrymores appeared in together. Rather dated and sometimes laughable, especially Ethel's constant "double-takes" whenever a dramatic moment occurs. But it's still worth watching.