The pedigree for "The Red Tent" ("Krasnaya palatka") is most unusual. It's a Soviety-Italian co-production with an international cast in the main roles (mostly Brits, Germans and Italians)! Apparently there are two versions of this film...a shorter English language version and the longer Russian language language version which I saw. The two films are apparently different when it comes to the soundtracks...with Ennio Moricone ("The Good, the Bad and the Ugly") doing the English language version. Despite this, I actually loved the Soviet soundtrack and can't imagine the music any better.
The film is an unusual dramatization of the ill-fated Italia expedition to the North Pole. Shortly after passing the Pole, the airship Italia crashed...killing several of the crew and stranding the rest in the middle of no where on an ice floe. Despite this, eventually, most of the survivors were rescued...something which is pretty amazing considering how huge the area was that they had to cover.
The film chose a most unusual way to portray the story. Much of it is in the present day, with the expedition leader, General Nobile, imagining that he's on trial...and his judges are folks associated with the rescue...several of which you know are dead! This is very confusing at first, but was a very interesting way to tell the story since Nobile lived into the 1970s (I do wonder if he got to see the movie).
Overall, this is a slow but amazingly well made movie...one of the better Soviet ones I've seen. My only quibble was in the billing. While Sean Connery is billed first, it has nothing to do with screen time and he was barely in the film! Instead, the clear leading man was Peter Finch...and he and everyone in the film did a tremendous job. Well worth seeing and a nice historical document as it stayed reasonably close to the actual events.
The film is an unusual dramatization of the ill-fated Italia expedition to the North Pole. Shortly after passing the Pole, the airship Italia crashed...killing several of the crew and stranding the rest in the middle of no where on an ice floe. Despite this, eventually, most of the survivors were rescued...something which is pretty amazing considering how huge the area was that they had to cover.
The film chose a most unusual way to portray the story. Much of it is in the present day, with the expedition leader, General Nobile, imagining that he's on trial...and his judges are folks associated with the rescue...several of which you know are dead! This is very confusing at first, but was a very interesting way to tell the story since Nobile lived into the 1970s (I do wonder if he got to see the movie).
Overall, this is a slow but amazingly well made movie...one of the better Soviet ones I've seen. My only quibble was in the billing. While Sean Connery is billed first, it has nothing to do with screen time and he was barely in the film! Instead, the clear leading man was Peter Finch...and he and everyone in the film did a tremendous job. Well worth seeing and a nice historical document as it stayed reasonably close to the actual events.