Mission to Moscow (1943)
What a bore, a laugh, an epic squandering. There is competance, of course—it's a Warner Bros. film in the 1940s with Michael Curtiz directing—but it's so burdened by its message it never becomes an actual movie about conflicts, characters, and plot.
It's pure propaganda. Knowing that, you can watch it with historic curiosity. It is, truly, weird enough to warrant a look if you follow the Roosevelt/Stalin comparison, and the general American attitude to the Soviet Union in the 1940s.
You will, however, get bored. It begins with a series of speeches, including an opening explanation by the author of the book the movie builds on. Even when the scenes have some interest, as when the diplomatic family tours the USSR, there is such an obvious attempt to make the Russians wonderful people with a terrific political system it turns your stomach. Not that I need to agree or disagree, I just don't want to be preached to.
And so it goes. There are factory visits, parades, ballroom affairs, and lots of preachy talking. It's impossible to care or get absorbed, but it is revealing of one large oddity of WWII: the need of the US to work alongside the USSR in defeating Hitler. The Germans come off badly, of course (the trains are so efficient they won't wait for people who get to the platform late). The Japanese even worse, caricatures who have made a mess of China. The second half of the movie is a different beast, a kind of judicial series of confrontations. It also has the feel of "information" instead of drama. It's well made, fairly well films and edited with clarity, but it can't make a silk purse out of you know what.
Warner Bros. fans might enjoy the appearance of an amazing number of actors. Because of all the shifting scenes from country to country, there was a need for a great number of secondary but familiar actors, like the detective from "Mildred Pierce." A good half the actors will seem familiar, even if you can't place what movies you've seen them in. If you love Curtiz (the reason I watched), you'll have trouble seeing his brilliance.
Finally, we might expect some kind of political revelation here—and what we see is a kind of admirable but perhaps naive American acting as ambassador to the USSR in the late 1930s. That's the guy who wrote the book, Joseph Davies, and you can see all these good intentions and homespun (Wisconsin style) Americanisms. It doesn't hold up well against the tough characters he was up against all around, from Stalin to Churchill.
What a bore, a laugh, an epic squandering. There is competance, of course—it's a Warner Bros. film in the 1940s with Michael Curtiz directing—but it's so burdened by its message it never becomes an actual movie about conflicts, characters, and plot.
It's pure propaganda. Knowing that, you can watch it with historic curiosity. It is, truly, weird enough to warrant a look if you follow the Roosevelt/Stalin comparison, and the general American attitude to the Soviet Union in the 1940s.
You will, however, get bored. It begins with a series of speeches, including an opening explanation by the author of the book the movie builds on. Even when the scenes have some interest, as when the diplomatic family tours the USSR, there is such an obvious attempt to make the Russians wonderful people with a terrific political system it turns your stomach. Not that I need to agree or disagree, I just don't want to be preached to.
And so it goes. There are factory visits, parades, ballroom affairs, and lots of preachy talking. It's impossible to care or get absorbed, but it is revealing of one large oddity of WWII: the need of the US to work alongside the USSR in defeating Hitler. The Germans come off badly, of course (the trains are so efficient they won't wait for people who get to the platform late). The Japanese even worse, caricatures who have made a mess of China. The second half of the movie is a different beast, a kind of judicial series of confrontations. It also has the feel of "information" instead of drama. It's well made, fairly well films and edited with clarity, but it can't make a silk purse out of you know what.
Warner Bros. fans might enjoy the appearance of an amazing number of actors. Because of all the shifting scenes from country to country, there was a need for a great number of secondary but familiar actors, like the detective from "Mildred Pierce." A good half the actors will seem familiar, even if you can't place what movies you've seen them in. If you love Curtiz (the reason I watched), you'll have trouble seeing his brilliance.
Finally, we might expect some kind of political revelation here—and what we see is a kind of admirable but perhaps naive American acting as ambassador to the USSR in the late 1930s. That's the guy who wrote the book, Joseph Davies, and you can see all these good intentions and homespun (Wisconsin style) Americanisms. It doesn't hold up well against the tough characters he was up against all around, from Stalin to Churchill.