Il sipario di ferro

This little cold war story tells the tale of an ordinary man caught up in the intrigue of the atomic spy scandal of the 1940's in Canada. Working as a code clerk in the Soviet embassy in Canada Igor Gouzenko learns that atomic secrets are being forwarded to Stalin through his office. The problem for the Soviet Union is that while in Canada Gouzenko begins to realize that the government he works for and fought for is more of a threat to its people than a protector. He also realizes that the Canadians around him are decent people and no threat to his people. Then the action begins, he steals copies of the information being stolen and tries to go to the Canadian Government and press and gets nowhere. Finally, when the NKVD police from the embassy show up at his apartment and they cause such a ruckus the neighbors call the local Canadian Police the nature of the documents are revealed. One of those immortal lines is uttered by the Cop when told the papers are property of the Soviet Union;"All Stolen Property must be Identified at the Police Station". This is followed by a look by the Cop equivilent to "Go ahead,Make my day". Some might try to say this film is an anachronism and too "hawkish" but the facts are true and the fall of the Soviet Union has backed it up. The acting is by a group of "journeymen and women",the direction is as simple as that of "The Longest Day",to tell an incredible tale that no fiction writer could dream up.

One of the more realistic as well as honest post WWII movies about the threat of Communism simply because it was based on a true story. The film supports the well worn notion of truth being stranger then fiction.

Setting up a number of sleeper cells at the hight of WWII in and around the Canadian City of Ottawa the Soviet Union has developed a spying apparatus that's soon to became the biggest foreign spying network in all of North America. With the head spy a Canadian Communist named John Grubb, Barry Kroeger, having a number of his team of Soviet agents in the Atomic Research Division of the Canadian Government. Glubb and his boss' back in Moscow got wind of a secret project that the US was developing in the use of atomic energy to harness and create an nuclear chain reaction, an Atomic Bomb, that will eventually be use against the axis to end the Second World War.

The movie "The Iron Curtain" has to do with Soviet cypher clerk Igor Gouzenka, Dana Andrews, who being station in Ottawa becomes very disenchanted with his country of birth, the Soviet Union, and decides to defect. Igor is hampered with the fact that he has family back in the USSR and a wife and young child Anna & Andrei, Gene Tierney & Robin Olsen, here in Canada where goons from the Soviet NKVD, working for the Soviet Embassy, can easily get their hands on them. We see Igor go through a number of stages during his stay in Canada as he soon realizes what he's missing in not living in a free country and just how hellish his home the USSR really is.

Being a good soldier, or cypher clerk, Igor does his work smoothly and without a flaw until his wife Anna ,who with Soviet Government approval, came over to visit him from the USSR and later gets pregnant with his son. All this changes Igor's feelings about his motherland, Mother Russia, in wanting his son young Andrei to live and grow up free in a free land Canada. What really pushes Igor over the line, and gets him and his wife and son to defect, is when he gets to see his best friend Maj. Semyon Kulin, Eduard Franz, crack up while gulping down a bottle of vodka and spilling his guts out. Maj. Kulin is sorry that he ever got involved with the Bolshevik/Communist regime. Knowing now just how evil it is in it doing in Kulin's his old man a great and proud leader of the 1917 Communist, or October, Revolution has driving him to drink. They, or Uncle Joe Stalin and his gang of murderous cutthroats, felt that Kulin's father was no longer useful to them and their cause in taking over, by extreme and brutal force if necessary, the both civilized and uncivilized world and thus kicked him out of power. The old and sick guy is now left to live on his meager pension in a one room walk-up, with pop suffering from a case of sever arthritis, apartment in Moscow.

It took a lot for Igor to do what he did in going over to the other side and not only revealing what he and his cohorts, both Russian and Canadians, were up to. Igor also stole from the Soviet Embassy over 100 pages of documents revealing the Soviets plan to steal the secret of the Atomic Bomb that Igor was terrified that they, the Stalin gangsters, would use to blackmail and thus take over, by hook or by crook, the free and none-Communist world.

Igor gets away from the Soviet Secret Police, the dreaded NKVD, only because their so clumsy and confused in operating in a free, unlike their home turf the USSR, and open society. Igor then had, after almost being handed over to his countrymen by a bunch of brainless and clueless Canadian bureaucrats, himself and his wife and son, Anna & Andrei,given political asylum. Igor Gouzenka died in his adopted country Canada on June 28, 1982 at the age of 63.

The vengeful Soviet Union who had put a price on his head and had dozens of secret agents looking to both find and do Igor in had him wearing a musty and smelly hood over his head in public to keep from being recognized and assassinated. This was a small price for Igor to pay to be a free man in a free land which he wasn't back home in the USSR.

P.S The famous statement "Iron Curtain" that's been attributed to Winston Churchills speech in Fulton Missouri on March 5, 1946 was actually coined by non-other then Nazi Propaganda and Culture Minister Dr. Joesph Goebbels a year earlier in an article that he wrote for the German newspaper Das Reich. Goebbels statement was broadcast by the British BBC, on Feberuary 25, 1945 in the waning weeks of the Second World War in Europe. A broadcast that Churchill obviously heard and later used Goebbels timely phrase "Eis Erner Vorhang", the Iron Curtain in German, in his Fulton speech.

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.

In reviewing this movie, I have to admit my personal bias as a Canadian living in Ottawa where the movie was shot. I had seen it many years ago and liked it so I was excited when it was shown on TCM on Easter eve. I had forgotten many of the scenes, although I know the story well. I appreciated the crisp cutaway shots of Ottawa with Gothic public buildings and brick houses shown against the stark winter backgrounds. I also liked the way the movie was shot in darkness and shadows evoking the Cold War atmosphere. Director Wm. Wellman got the details correct with his script and the visual references to Ottawa landmarks. The Justice Building is the actual Confederation Building still used by the Dept.of Justice. The railway shown running along the Rideau Canal is no longer there but that was the location used by trains in and out of Union Station in downtown Ottawa. The actual apartment where Gouzenko lived is shown. It still stands along with the park across the street where there is signage indicating the historical significance of the site nearby. We also see Somerset St. with a streetcar passing the building where he resided. The Parliament Buildings, the Château Laurier and the National Research Council are all shown and all were pivotal locations for the story. There is a reference to the child of Igor and Anna Gouzenko born at St. Vincent's Hospital, which still stands in the neighbourhood where Gouzenko lived. I like the documentary style also used effectively in other films from that era, such as The House on 92nd Street, Naked City and the Wrong Man. The film noir look is typical of the era and suits the espionage story. Where the movie falls short, however, is in the characters of Igor and Anna Gouzenko as performed by Dana Andrews and Jean Tierney. I can certainly respect the choice of two accomplished actors for the roles; however, these Hollywood icons are a stretch for the Russian couple in the story, especially for a movie that pays such close attention to other details. Nevertheless, I can see that two acting stars would attract attention to the movie and the story. For example, a Cold War museum outside Ottawa, built as a bunker for government leaders in the 1950's, features photos from the movie to highlight the story. As someone with a passion for Canadian history and movies, I have great affection for The Iron Curtain. I was very grateful for TCM bringing this little known movie to its viewers.

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.