Gorky Park (1983)

Director:

Michael Apted

Writers:

Martin Cruz Smith (novel)
Dennis Potter (writer)

Release Date:

17 February 1984 (Finland)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller | Crime

Tagline:

It all began with three faceless bodies in the snow ...

Plot:

An investigator on the Moscow police force relentlessly pursues the solution to a triple homicide which occurred in Moscow's Gorky Park...

Plot Keywords:

Cold War | Female Nudity | Place Name In Title | Beautiful Woman | Detective

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

William Hurt	...	Arkady Renko
Lee Marvin	...	Jack Osborne
Brian Dennehy	...	William Kirwill
Ian Bannen	...	Iamskoy
Joanna Pacula	...	Irina Asanova
Michael Elphick	...	Pasha
Richard Griffiths	...	Anton
Rikki Fulton	...	Maj. Pribluda
Alexander Knox	...	General
Alexei Sayle	...	Golodkin
Ian McDiarmid	...	Prof. Andreev
Niall O'Brien	...	KGB Agent Rurik
Henry Woolf	...	Levin
Tusse Silberg	...	Natasha
Patrick Field	...	Fet

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:16 (f) | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Iceland:16 | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

Eagle Associates

Trivia:

The Irish Coffee Bar where Renko and the others discuss brandy and creme de menthe no longer exists but the Sheraton of course still stands at Tegelbacken.

Goofs:

Continuity: Renko's very obvious black eye almost completely disappears in a matter of several minutes.

Quotes:

Irina Asanova: KGB have better cars, you know.
Arkady Renko: Ah, but they don't always take you where you want to go, do they?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Making of 'Gorky Park' (1983) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Swan Lake

Cold War Thriller of Highest Order, Fresh Two Decades On

Life is cheap when people are desperate.

Gorky Park is a communal leisure area in Moscow. A place of beauty available to the poorest. It was a tenet of faith of US conservatives of the day that communism had left people poor. US liberals of the day claimed that the truth of communist freedoms was being obscured by conservatives. Few in the west understood Soviet life. Whatever the faults of this film, the characters were real, desperate and flawed.

The hero is part superman in the violence. Both touched and Teflon. Hurt plays the naive observer who is witnessing cracks in the paintwork. An honest cop who knows enough politics to live.

The mystery is disturbing, and things get worse. Soviet Russia was a flawed vision of idealists. Nothing works as it is supposed to, and when some well meaning youths attempt to achieve utopia, establishment has a way of buying souls.

Gorky Park is a vision that might have been set in any of many nations where totalitarian regimes fed on the dreams of youth. This is not a common or average film. The violence is extreme and apparently unnecessary, except in some places in the world, such things happen.

I've not read the book.