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Mission To Moscow

1943, Movie, NR, 123 mins

Mission To Moscow: Review

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A controversial and blatant propaganda film that attempted to show how smart Ambassador Joseph E. Davies was (the film is adapted from his book), and what great friends the Soviets were to the US. Politics aside, and it is a well-done picture with the almost impossible task of depicting history nearly as fast as it was happening. Huston is Davies, and he and his family (Harding and Parker) are seen leaving the US for Russia, stopping off in Germany on their way to the Soviet Union, where they meet all the heavyweight Communists. The makeup jobs on Kippen (Stalin), Lockhart (Molotov), and some others are sensational. It's almost a travelog of Russia, as we are treated to scenes of Soviet life that border on the ludicrous (and were heartily laughed at by Moscow moviegoers) and include factory sequences and various other tries at humanizing the Soviet people. The oddest section is a re-creation of the 1937 purge trials, supposedly culled from the actual testimony and purporting to show that the leaders knew of Germany and Japan's Axis plot. It's very pro-Russian and Jack Warner, who later became a hard-line conservative spokesman, must have been embarrassed by the movie in later years. Curtiz had a difficult task directing all of these speaking roles and making an interesting movie. Although he succeeded, the film remains a combination curiosity piece and fairy tale. It gave work to just about every actor with an accent in Hollywood at the time. Left-wingers hailed it; right-wingers hated it. The film earned an Oscar nomination for its art direction. leave a comment
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