Un train pour Petrograd

Jason CONNERY has no such great acting career as his parents Diane Cilento (1933-2011, ACADEMY AWARD nominee for "Tom Jones" in 1964) and ACADEMY AWARD winner (in 1987 for THE UNTOUCHABLES) Sean Connery (1930-2020). But after his breakthrough as "Robin Hood" (in the series he replaced Michael Praed, who had moved to DYNASTY) he was able to make a few more films in the gradually fading film industry of the Roman Cinecitta. The erotic comedy LA VENEXIANA (1986), in which the very young Jason Connery impresses as Laura Antonelli's strong lover, is well worth seeing from this period.

In those years, Cinecitta also produced mini-series about historical events with prominent casts. You can see Jason Connery in this must-see mini-series by Damiano Damiani as the hot-blooded admirer of the beautiful Inessa (Dominique Sanda), for whose favor he has to compete with none other than Lenin (ACADEMY AWARD winner Ben Kingsley). It's about the legendary train journey through imperial Germany to bring Lenin to Russia so that he could fuel the revolution there.

This mini-series, which is worth seeing, was broadcast in Germany in February 1990. The great Leslie Caron (*1931) is there as Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaja, who had shaken up the American prime time soap FALCON CREST the year before as the scheming Nicole Sauguet for three episodes.

German-speaking actors could also be seen in the international co-production from 1988: Günther Maria Halmer, Hans Michael Rehberg, Ernst Jacobi and Thomas Heinze take part. The attractive actor Amadeus August (1942-1992), who also had guest roles in DALLAS and DERRICK (There's a Huge Thing Going On, 1988), is cast as Captain Keller.

Before viewing 'Lenin: The Train' for the second time, I went and visited the On Line Encyclopedia to remember the Russia-1917-story. So, I found back Lenin, his mistress Inès, and all the people they had met on their way to the Revolution. This time they were very familiar to me. In this road motion picture, they are credible human beings. Damiani is a good director. The special atmosphere of travelling by train, I have always been fond of, is there. The regular knocking of the wheels on the rails, and the train that whistles are part of the cast and the drama. It's a film where we find a small bit of war and great moral battle; a few distressing scenes when people are killed; love and treason, shown with discretion, penetrate the soul. If there are some boring scenes in this 170 minutes film for which the 8/10 rate has not been robbed, they are washed away by the nice music. Go and see. Brilliant!