Just perfect...

Absolutely Fantastic

The acting in this movie is really good.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I'm surprised at how low this movie's rating is on here. It's a well-made and very interesting film.Yes, of course, it is pure propaganda. It whitewashes the atrocities of Stalin's Soviet Union almost completely to convince Americans that the USSR was a good ally. As, in fact, it was during the war, if not, of course, after the war. The picture it paints of Russia bears little resemblance to reality.But look at the picture it paints of the U.S. in 1940 and 1941 before Pearl Harbor. Isolationists in Congress who impeded Roosevelt's efforts to rearm the nation for a conflict that anyone but a fool should have seen coming.Yes, this movie glorifies Ambassador Davis. But, as it shows, too many Americans were isolationists, and they needed to be convinced, over and over again, that we could not remain isolationists and survive.Walter Huston gives a great performance here as Davis. Whether the real Davis was as blind to Russia's failings as the character in the movie, I can't say. But this movie gives a powerfully accurate picture of why World War II took place, how it could have been avoided, and why appeasement never works.There are still lessons to be learned from this movie.

This is an artfully arranged movie that I felt compelled to watch scene by scene. Yes, this is clearly propaganda, and it bends over backwards to excuse the Realpolitik of Moscow's pre-war diplomatic manipulations. In the "show trial" scenes it avoids any expectation of honesty yet excels in the writing and acting of the various "conspiracy" characters. While writer Howard Koch and director Michael Curtiz are obviously doing their best to whitewash the Soviet regime and judiciary, there is enough focus on anti-Soviet perspectives that a viewer may suppose the presentation is "objective"-- thus enhancing the message with a feeling of fairness. For all its warping of reality, the film is a masterpiece of writing, cinematography, and acting-- and in his pacing and masterful blending of file footage with dedicated scenes, director Curtiz was at the top of his game. I would love to know more of the real life back stories of the émigré actors who played roles that appear to be opposed to their own political leanings. Konstantine Shayne (Bukharin) wins the prize for his deeply thoughtful portrayal.

The flaws in this film are gigantic and obvious. The scenes of the show trials, to take one example, not only falsify history, but come off as so flat and awkward as to make it impossible to believe any of the confessions. Which makes me wonder: was this just bad writing by an otherwise gifted screenwriter or deliberate sabotage?We know this much: that Davies had final script approval. It shows: he is in every scene and given the last word on every subject. You can imagine him standing over Howard Koch's shoulder, insisting on rewriting this scene and adding extra touches to another. All this must have been maddening to a professional writer at the pinnacle of his career.Which leads to my pet theory: that Koch exacted his revenge by making Davies look like a fool. While the film may appear to be painting Davies in a positive light – it would be hard for him not to be at least likable with Walter Huston playing him – a closer viewing depicts him not only as naïve and gullible, but also self-centered and vain. What else do we make of those scenes – and they keep recurring – in which various Soviet figures tell Davies how insightful, open and honest he was? Davies, of course, never disagrees, but instead launches into another speech in which he assures his friends that he will tell America or the world what's really going on in the Soviet Union. Whether Davies realized it or not, the film shows him as someone who only needs to be tickled under the chin in order to be seduced.Which brings us back to the show trial scenes. Bukharin did as much as he could to defeat Vyshinsky by admitting as much as he had to in order to save his family but denying whatever else he could, while dropping broad hints that none of what he was saying was true. Koch's script does something similar: the confessions of Radek, Bukharin, Yagoda and the rest sound canned and unconvincing and the defendants themselves look more like defeated party functionaries than conspirators. Which is, of course, the truth—it's just not advertised as such.

To its credit, we know before viewing that this will indeed be a fairly stuffy, slow moving propaganda film about World War II.The American ambassador visits several countries before the outbreak of the second world war, with Russia his chief focus.The evils of Stalin are downplayed, to say the least, and his brief appearance can either be seen as benevolent or Machiavellian. The evils of Hitler are not downplayed.A film about ambassadors won't be interesting, and will be very stuffy. The director tries to modify this. In effect, we get half-documentary half-movie.This is an important film, because it tells us what people felt during this time, particularly people in power. It gives a very realistic account of the upper society, in an age when the oceans still isolate America, but the safety gap of the oceans was shrinking, as is stated by one of the characters.