In this silent study of revenge of a sort, the great Emil Jannings plays Sergius Alexander, a former Russian general and Grand Duke, cousin to the Czar, who is reduced to living in Hollywood as a struggling actor; his experiences during the Russian Revolution broke him, and now he's an elderly wreck with a nervous twitch—his head shakes back and forth, as if he's constantly in disbelief about how his life turned out—and a shell-shocked distance in his eyes. Leo Andreyev (William Powell), a Hollywood director who played a big part in Sergius's life, is casting a film about the downfall of the czarist forces, and he casts Sergius as the Russian commander. Andreyev's motives and the story of their connection are presented in a lengthy flashback sequence that makes up the bulk of the film; the flashback is cued during a casting call when hundreds of ruffians scoff at Sergius's protests that he was, indeed, a Russian general.

We go then to 1917, at the height of the Revolution. Sergius was indeed a general, the commander of the Russian Armies. Stalking through his troops imperiously, he looks like a completely different man (Jannings was a very tall man, and this adds to his imperiousness). It turns out that Andreyev was a "revolutionist," using the term used in the film, and he and his comrade Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent) work as actors entertaining the troops while plotting their defeat. Sergius summons Natalie and Andreyev, and after a confrontation in which the Bolshevik calls the Grand Duke a coward for hiding behind his troops, Andreyev is sent off to prison while Sergius invites Natalie to accompany him as his mistress. She goes with him, but with plans to assassinate him.

Sergius and the rest of the Czarist forces (at least their commanders) are portrayed during much of the film as leeches who live off the fat of the land while sending the poor out to fight and die for a way of life that they didn't have any part of. Sergius, upon learning that the Czar will be inspecting the troops, forces a much-needed battalion to leave the front and parade for the out-of-touch leader; Sergius refuses to leave the parade to lead his desperate troops in battle. Somewhere in there, though, Sergius starts to become a sympathetic, if misguided, character. He refuses to stage an offensive for the pleasure of the Czar. He falls genuinely in love with Natalie, who discovers that she admires the man and can't kill him.

If the film portrays the White Russians as misguided despots who turn out to be not so bad, it has nothing but scorn for the Bolsheviks, who are portrayed as little more than drunken buffoons, traitors, and cowards bent on murder. One title actually says "A group of obscure people meet to decide the fate of Russia"—obscure people like Lenin and Trotsky. The details of the events that lead up to Sergius's capture, humiliation, and escape I will not reveal here.

This is basically a fascinating character study of a "great" man who deserves, but doesn't deserve, his bitter end. The film is careful to show us how Sergius changes from a terrible man into a sympathetic character, and the amazing ending, in which Andreyev the director exacts his final revenge on his former tormentor, is an exercise in tightrope walking: the film subtly separates Sergius from its criticism of the Czar, but does not separate Andreyev, until the very last, from its criticism of the Bolsheviks. Jannings deservedly won the first-ever Best Actor award; his nuanced performance, effectively a dual role, was the focus of the entire film.

The film has no time for issues of capitalism or communism; in effect, it views the Russian Revolution in the same light as many people view the French Revolution: decadent rich people are deposed by howling mobs of lowlifes, and chaos reigns. What is interesting is the parallel it draws between the Russia before the Revolution and Hollywood: it sees Andreyev and his film sycophants (watch for mirrored scenes of a cigarette lighting) as essentially the same people as the Russian aristocrats. The mobs of Bolsheviks are not much different than the mobs of the poor looking for bit parts in extravagant battle scenes. It is possible that this film wanted to please everyone: sure, the Bolsheviks were violent mobs, but who can blame them? And sure, Sergius was a petty tyrant, but what would you do if you were in his shoes? It's Hollywood not wanting to take a real stand, but it is a slight flaw in an otherwise very good film.