Forbidden Territory (1934) review: A goofy, dusty old spy escape

If you want to spend an hour watching British actors pretend to be in freezing Siberia while clearly sweating under studio lights, Forbidden Territory is a weirdly fun time.

People who love dusty 1930s thrillers and spy stories will probably get a kick out of this. Anyone who needs fast action or realistic accents should stay far away.

The whole plot is basically a rescue mission. Sir Charles and his son Rex head into Soviet Russia to get his other son, Michael, out of a gulag.

They get help from Valarie, a singer who is very dramatic about her love for Michael.

Honestly, the best part of the movie is how cheap everything looks. You can practically smell the fake snow.

There is this one scene where they are planning the escape in a crowded room, and they are barely whispering. Like, the guards are right there!

It has that same goofy tension you find in old silent-era comedies like Stop Thief, but everyone here is trying to be deadly serious.

Gregory Ratoff plays Alexei, and he is just chewing the scenery. Every time he is on screen, he yells his lines like he is trying to reach the back of a theater in another town.

It is glorious.

The screenplay actually had Alma Reville on the writing team. She was Alfred Hitchcock's wife and had a hand in his best early thrillers.

You can see bits of her style in the way the tension builds, but the director, Phil Rosen, doesn't really know what to do with it.

The camera just sits there, watching people talk.

The Big Escape

Then we get to the big climax. The escape vehicle is... a flat wagon pulled by three horses.

They are trying to outrun the Red Army in what looks like a very slow parade float. 🐎

The editing gets really frantic here, trying to make us believe these horses are flying. But you can tell they are just jogging through some trees.

The Commissar chasing them looks more annoyed about the cold than actually catching his prisoners.

It's much less intense than something like The Secret Code, which actually kept you on the edge of your seat.

Still, there's a charm to how simple it is. No deep messages, just a family trying not to get shot in the snow.

One weird detail: Michael's hair stays perfectly combed the entire time he is in prison. He looks like he just stepped out of a barbershop, not a Russian cell.

If you like finding these little mistakes, you will have a blast.

It is a short film, so it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Just don't expect a masterpiece. It's a fun, dusty relic of its time.

Some weird things I noticed:

• The fake snow looks suspiciously like soap flakes.
• How did that singer keep her makeup so perfect during a horse chase?
• The guards seem to have the worst eyesight in the history of cinema.
• That one horse that clearly wanted to go in the opposite direction.