La cortina de hierro

...done in the "documentary" style then used by Fox, even using the same narrator used in other, similar pictures, such as "The House on 92nd Street" from a few years earlier.

This picture shows much effort and talent, but somehow it doesn't quite come off, perhaps because it was clearly approached as a propaganda film, almost shrill in its pro-Western slant, just as the Cold War was beginning.

What I noticed most about the picture was its artful and effective use of music by Soviet composers, without crediting them except in the dialogue. As a musician I am shocked and appalled to learn that these composers' music was used without their permission. The Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev, which is quoted extensively, had only been given its Western premiere a few years before this picture was released, and was then given a landmark 1945 recording, by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, for Victor Records. Using the music of these composers without their knowledge or permission is like stealing!

I don't understand how a serious musician like Alfred Newman could have been party to this. Perhaps he thought he was making a patriotic, pro-Western statement, but as an artist he should have known how these composers would feel.

Wedged between the famous Otto Preminger Film Noir LAURA and WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS and almost a decade past TOBACCO ROAD is the sublime pair-up of Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney under the direction of William A. Wellman in a Cold War Thriller at the rudimentary stages of that very thing: the movie takes place during and right after WWII and was released only three years after the war ended...

Based on the true story of "Soviet cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko who was posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada in 1943... to reveal the extent of Soviet espionage activities directed against Canada," Dana Andrews takes a sort of reverse risk since nothing's worse than an American actor caught doing a bad-hammy foreign accent, especially one as thick as Russian... And so, Dana basically speaks exactly like Dana. Meanwhile, Tierney slips in a very subtle accent and either way, both do a good enough job, making an otherwise passable programmer worth viewing: Although the real scene-stealer is Texas-born Berry Kroeger as "Paul," taking that risk and succeeding with flying colors, seeming and sounding like a Russian Orson Welles type of classy, distinguished yet nefarious thug with a scowl that's genuine, menacing and lethal...

He's the person to truly fear, for both the audience and our hero, who will eventually attempt to defect with information about Canadian spies for the Soviets. "Paul" also keeps a narrowed eye on those spies who might have lost their tight grip on the dream of communism. Berry's scenes without either Dana or Gene are beyond-effective, and provide a dark Noirish vibe when needed - as does the initial setup concerning Andrews when Russian Femme Fatale-like secretary June Havoc tests his loyalty with vodka and attempted passion.

The suspense that's supposed to occur as Andrews and Tierney, with their newborn baby in her arms and secret documents stuffed into his clothing, just isn't there as he tries locating any form of authority willing to listen to what seems like a nutcase conspiracy involving the Russian Embassy. Before that, Igor's transition is much too quick and easy; after listening to quirky, vulnerable comrade Stefan Schnabel's drunken speech against their country, he's converted as a loyal Canadian with defecting on the brain. During his most effect scenes, Dana remains the most square-jawed as a true Russian who believes in something that we, and not yet he, know will eventually change.

Fox was doing several spy documentaries in the '40s in the style of 13 RUE MADELEINE and THE HOUSE ON 92nd STREET, and this is one of their less melodramatic stories of espionage performed in low-key style by DANA ANDREWS and GENE TIERNEY.

Andrews is Igor Gouzenko, a Russian who is part of a Canadian spy ring. He has a taste of freedom when he lives in Canada and decides to defect with his wife and young son, but not before taking classified documents with him which he intends to hand over to the authorities.

Director William A. Wellman gets just a moderate amount of suspense out of the true life story, deciding not to go for melodramatics but having the whole story played out in low-key style befitting a documentary type of film. There's even some narration to frame the story.

Andrews gives a decent performance, tight-lipped and determined to leave his Russian heritage behind and find freedom in Canada under the protection of the Royal Canadian police. Tierney gives one of her more sincere performances as the wife, concerned for the welfare of her child and his right to grow up under democracy's freedom.

A bit too much propaganda but nicely photographed and played by a competent cast, including EDUARD FRANZ in a rather showier role. Lacks the dramatic power it might have had if a more melodramatic approach had been used.

The defection of Igor Gouzenko from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, in 1946, was one of the most electrifying events of the Cold War. The documents and information which he brought with him, gained from his work as a top-secret cipher clerk, resulted in the destruction of the main Soviet spy ring in Canada, which included a Member of Parliament and a nuclear scientist who was working on the atomic bomb. This film, with all the locations shot in Ottawa, and its details drawn from the official reports of a Royal Commission, is a fascinating depiction of the true story of Gouzenko from the moment of his arrival in Canada, his first time outside the Soviet Union, till his defection with his wife and child. William Wellmann directed the film in a low-key style, with some documentary linking narration from time to time. Dana Andrews was never so subdued and soft-spoken as Gouzenko in this film, and Gene Tierney is remarkably self-effacing as the devoted wife and mother of an infant. She has no particularly interesting scenes. The really powerful performances in this film are by Berry Kroeger, in his first film appearance, as an insidious, swaggering and menacing mastermind of a Soviet espionage ring, and Eduard Franz as a Soviet major who 'just cannot take it any more' and turns into a drunk. The film is tense and gripping, and follows closely the real life events of this notorious story. June Havoc is effective in a minor role as the resident Soviet honeypot who tests the new staff with alcohol and seduction to see if they are indiscreet. The world inside the Soviet Embassy is convincingly and eerily depicted, a demi-monde and a half-life of people serving Stalin and the Party like grim automatons with dark faces and all humanity stripped out of them. This film gives a nice lesson in the realities of sordid power, and the hollowness of institutionalised betrayal. There are none so low as those who slither.

The embellished story of Soviet defector Igor Gouzenko is told here in the documentary style that 20th Century Fox popularized in the post World War II period with such other films as The House On 92nd Street, The Street With No Name and 13 Rue Madeleine. Gouzenko is played here in tightlipped fashion for an uptight man by Dana Andrews with Mrs. Gouzenko played by frequent Andrews co-star Gene Tierney.

Gouzenko was a security code clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and was an important conduit for top secret information both in and out of official diplomatic channels. During the Cold War it was a standard practice for the Soviets to use their embassies as places of espionage as well as diplomacy as did we. But this started during World War II when both sides were ostensibly allies.

Canada had its own role in World War II as an ally, an important supplier of troops and even more important guardian of the North Atlantic sea lanes for supplies. Their scientists worked on the Manhattan Project and the development of a super weapon certainly piqued Soviet interest. Just what were allies America and the United Kingdom working on?

When we meet Gouzenko he's a pretty firm true believer in the evangelizing mission of the Soviet state. But what was presented satirically in films like Ninotchka and Comrade X is done seriously here. The material prosperity of the west is something Andrews pretends not to notice, but Tierney isn't quite as self controlled.

The friendliness of neighbor Edna Best to Tierney and her infant son proves to be invaluable in the end. No wonder the Soviets tell Andrews to stand aloof from the ordinary Canadians. Random acts of kindness can sometimes really pay off.

A good cast of villainous types play various Soviet embassy and intelligence officials. Two should be singled out, a female seductress played by June Havoc who tests Andrews discretion and loyalty and comes up short. And Eduard Franz who plays another embassy official who becomes disillusioned with Communism and isn't so discreet about it.

For a Cold War era anti-Communist film, The Iron Curtain holds up well over 60 years later. How convenient of Winston Churchill to provide a title for this film with a famous speech in 1948.