Ivan Groznyy I (1944)

Director:

Sergei M. Eisenstein

Writer:

Sergei M. Eisenstein (writer)

Release Date:

8 March 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Biography

Plot:

During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

Plot Keywords:

Power | Exile | Coronation | Russia | Tartar

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Nikolai Cherkasov	...	Czar Ivan IV
Lyudmila Tselikovskaya	...	Czarina Anastasia Romanovna
Serafima Birman	...	Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya
Mikhail Nazvanov	...	Prince Andrei Kurbsky
Mikhail Zharov	...	Czar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov
Amvrosi Buchma	...	Czar's Guard Aleksei Basmanov
Mikhail Kuznetsov	...	Fyodor Basmanov
Pavel Kadochnikov	...	Vladimir Andreyevich Staritsky
Andrei Abrikosov	...	Boyar Fyodor Kolychev
Aleksandr Mgebrov	...	Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen
Maksim Mikhajlov	...	Archdeacon
Vsevolod Pudovkin	...	Nikola, Simpleton Beggar
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Pavel Massalsky	...	Sigismond - King of Poland
Sergei Stolyarov

Also Known As:

Иван Грозный (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Ivan the Terrible, Part One (USA)
Ivane Mriskhane, natsili pirveli (Soviet Union: Georgian title)

Runtime:

103 min | USA:95 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | South Korea:15 | Portugal:M/6 | Finland:S | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Company:

Mosfilm

Trivia:

Took over 3 years to make.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the people in the village ask Ivan to come back to Moscow, some shots show people in the background standing, other shots show them kneeling.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hitler - ein Film aus Deutschland (1977)

Christ like defence of Imperialism

The combination of Russian adventurism in the Near East and Russian Orthodox Christianity, juxtaposed with the terrible fight for survival against the Nazis, produced this masterpiece. Never mind that such understatements as "In Which We Serve" reduce this to it's rightful place in propaganda- that just moves IWWS up towards it's rightful place amongst the Greatest Films Ever Made. This is more along the lines of the wartime production of Harry V- great propaganda, but stuff that tells more about the producers than their erstwhile enemies.

Harry lauded the British qualities of beggar thy master, a British Longbowman is as good, and sometimes more worthwhile, than his lord; Ivan says that Comrade Stalin is worth ten divisions, especially if he looks like Jesus Christ (a bird- I am stuffed if I can figure that one out; maybe some people have been reading too much Derrida inspired, Post Structuralist Bovine Excrement). As an ex-seminarian, Comrade Stalin almost certainly had a Messiah Complex; as a Russian, he definitely had no time for any democratic drivel. A Makarov bullet to the back of the brain inspired him, Putin, and every nasty Russian Dictator in between.

Americans and Russians have two things in common- they were the last people on earth to outlaw slavery in the 19th Century, and they were the last people on earth to recognise, and fight, the horror of Fascism in the 20th. As propaganda, this is great; as history, it is frightening.