This 1943 film has an infamous reputation as the worst of the pro Soviet films Hollywood made during World War II. Based on the memoirs of Joseph Davies (who was ambassador to the Soviet Union at the height of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and appears as himself in the embarrassing movie intro), it is mind numbingly naïve about the nature of Stalinist Russia. The most ridiculous part of the movie is surely its depiction of the Moscow trials of 1937, where the defendants, portrayed as witless, cowardly thugs (except for Bukharin, which looks like an evil genius), are shown as unquestionably guilty. But even the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939 and the Soviet invasion of Finland later that year are defended here.
Its monumental naivete aside, it is kind of well done, in the sense that it was filmed competently (by Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca among many other films) and is politically embarrassing but never boring. Stalin reportedly liked the movie and had it shown several times in his private Kremlin screening room to his Politburo buddies. Walter Huston played ambassador Davies. Many little known character actors play the different Soviet politicians, and they were obviously hired due to the physical resemblance to the characters they were playing.
Its monumental naivete aside, it is kind of well done, in the sense that it was filmed competently (by Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca among many other films) and is politically embarrassing but never boring. Stalin reportedly liked the movie and had it shown several times in his private Kremlin screening room to his Politburo buddies. Walter Huston played ambassador Davies. Many little known character actors play the different Soviet politicians, and they were obviously hired due to the physical resemblance to the characters they were playing.