The Girl in the Kremlin

Poor Natalie Daryll had her head shaved for THIS?

No one watched this film thinking it would be good, but one would think a cold war film with Lex Barker and Zsa Zsa Gabor would least be funny. This is a snooze fest.

The film offers very little by way of camp. A few men escape prosecution by disguising themselv s as nuns but that is it.

The film utilizes a lot of Soviet propaganda film footage to fill time.

One thing this film did well was to make the Universal City back lot look a lot like Bavaria, Germany.

It is a sad fact that Zsa Zsa Gabor is a better actress than Lex Barker is an actor.

The movie starts in the Kremlin in 1953, where Joseph Stalin (played by Maurice Manson) indulges in his fetish by watching a woman having her head shaved. He then undergoes plastic surgery, watches the people gathering to mourning his death, has the doctor who performed the surgery shot, and then vanishes from the story. For a while, anyway.

In Berlin, former OSS agent and PI Lex Barker tries to gives Zsa Zsa Gabor her money back. She hired him to track down her sister, but never mentioned that she was working in the Kremlin. After she offers him more money, he goes back to work, and decides that Stalin is still alive. But where? There's spy stuff.

I strongly suspect this is an updating of an unproduced script for just after the War, in which Hitler has been replaced by Stalin. It's strictly cheap fare from producer Albert Zugsmith, and the only names I recognize are William Schallert as Stalin's son, and DP Carl Guthrie.

Why does no one mourn the terrible surviving print of this movie? The actors seem to ply their craft through sets flooded with vanilla pudding. I had to ID the characters by movement and relative size.

Most of the time I got it right. Pity.

I saw this movie, fresh out, at the local emporium, right next to the 5-and-dime, just down from the drugstore that served Cokes by squirting syrup in a glass, topping it up with carbonated water and a gentle scoop of ice, with a final vigorous stir of a long spoon. (You got a PAPER straw that usually collapsed before the Coke was finished.) Place had a fancy wooden phone booth. And a shelf of mysterious substances in large glass jars with glass stoppers.

ANYWAY, I digress. As a ten-year-old boy, the opening sequence of this movie showed me that parts of my body were capable of strange and glorious things. That firmly melancholic memory makes me wonder: Does NO ONE possess a better print of this film? Surely a storage box hides in some warehouse, where the ghosts of Lex and Zsa Zsa lament the darkness.

Or, perhaps, some wired wizard, sequestered in Mom's basement, will discover this film from back-in-the-day and, fueled by pizza and Monster, initiate a restoration that will turn back global warming, feed the hungry everywhere, and usher in nuclear disarmament.

Yeah, well ...

Well Known Right-Winger and Studio Publicist, Russell Birdwell, Assisting John Wayne Promoting "The Alamo", Directed this Brutal Exploitation-Propaganda of those Evil Commies.

Dark Tone and Somber Throughout...

It Starts with a Lengthy Scene with Stalin Seated Puffing on a Pipe, Watching a Beautiful Brunette with Waist-Length Hair,

Undergoing a Shaved-Head Haircut. There is No Explanation.

Aside from the Obvious Pleasure of Stalin Getting His Kicks.

Next, it's Off to the Plastic Surgeon for Uncle Joe who is about to Fake His Own Death and High-Tail, with Half of the Soviet Treasury.

Enter Zsa Zsa Gabor in a Dual Role, Searching for Her Identical Twin, Last Seen as Stalin's Nurse in Moscow.

She Hires He-Man Lex Baxter, Ex-OSS and Now a Private Eye, to Find Her Sibling.

When Baxter Discovers that there are "Rumors" of Stalin's Switcheroo, He Joins Zsa Zsa with the Added Bonus, no not Gabor, but a Hefty Down-Payment.

There's Some Intrigue, and with the Help of a One-Armed Secret-Service Agent (Jeff Stone) and a Hiding-Out Son of Stalin (William Schallart) the Hunt is On.

Plenty of Action, Including a Brutal, Bloody Flogging of Baxter. One Gets the Impression that there are also some Deranged and Detached Minds Behind the Camera.

Intense, Low-Low Budget Movie that Delivers the Goods. However Critics and Fans seem to Loathe this Under-Ground Treasure of Sleazy Cinema from a By-Gone Era.

There's a Lot More Here than Meets the Eye.

Say Hello and Good-Bye to America's Little Friend During WWII, Uncle Joe Stalin...

Who Starved Millions of His Countrymen...Because He Could.

Worth a Watch.

The first few minutes of this film emerge as one of the most exciting and moving in the history of film. After the haircut, turn off the movie and watch something else. However, don't miss the first minutes of this film. A necessary addition to any collector's library.