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.

I learn from history books that in 1956 the URSS' Communist Party amply criticized the doings of its former First Secretary, Joseph Stalin, died in 1953. With a perfect timing comes out in 1957 "The Girl in the Kremlin".

Back to the film: well, Stalin is not really dead. He is still alive, and plots to regain his dictatorial powers in a now (1957) slightly changed Soviet Union. This an admissible kern idea for a story for the movies: we were comfortable, to say one, with King Kong's destroying Tokyo... But I won't write about the plot: you can find an outline of it in this same site, or elsewhere. I'd like to focus on some other aspects. Here we go.

Thousands and thousands of films have been made with an underlying propaganda undercurrent, and some are very good. But when the thing is so blatant, with all the Soviets represented ab initio as pure idiots, then we are not there. It's like taking Americans (and the rest of the world of movie-goers) for just as many idiots (there undoubtedly have been many of them, and presumably there are still now), if you expect them to believe this nonsense. Paradoxically, those films, always with underlying propaganda, but serious, which treat the characters - whatever their political position - as human beings, just as a normal member of an audience considers her/himself, have the greatest effect. Assuming that something like a "normal" audience ever existed or will exist.

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 ...

"The Girl in the Kremlin" has a ridiculous premise...not quite as ridiculous as "They Saved Hitler's Brain"...but close! It seems that although it was announced to the world that Stalin died of a stroke in 1953, he did, according to this silly story, actually live on by substituting one of his doubles and then having plastic surgery! He did this, apparently, because he knew a purge was coming...and this time it was coming for him!

Despite the notion of Stalin surviving and, perhaps, one day trying to return to power being ridiculous, the film tries very hard to play it straight....and making it seem only 99% ridiculous instead of 100% ridiculous. The only trouble I had with this kitschy film was the ending...as the death scene didn't make any sense at all. See it...see what I mean.

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.