MISSION TO MOSCOW

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 283, 24 November 1944, Page 24

MISSION TO MOSCOW

(Warner Bros.)

HE proper place to review Mission to Moscow would be in a political, not qa movie, column. For this is a political

document rather than a film entertainment-in spite of the publicity announcement that it concerns "a couple of guys named Joe" and the assurance that it offers you Romance! Suspicion! Excitement! in the City of Seething Intrigue and Mystery. And whatever angle you view it from, it is a political document of a most revealing kind, this version of Ambassador Joseph E. Davies’ account of his assignment to the U.S.S.R., which has been produced for our benefit by "those patriotic citizens, the Warner Brothers" (the words are from the film). The most important things which Ambassador Davies carried with him to Moscow were the shrewd, critical eyes of the successful business man and lawyer, a determination to find out the facts for himself, and a sense of the importance of his task. Except that he went (and came away) with an undeviating faith in the superiority of America’s capitalist way of life, it might also be said that he had an open mind. But the chief item of baggage which the screen ‘Davies (Walter Huston) seems to have taken with him is a large bucket of E eame bealoae: He brings it back empty. Thus we see in pronounced form in ‘this film one of the most disturbing trends of our time. Having for years done almost everything in its power to suggest that the Russians have been completely wrong-headed and are, if not exactly barbarians, at least not the sort of people that anybody (especially good Americans) would want in any way to copy, the film industry has now turned a complete somersault — a forward somersault, maybe, but still a somersault. The studio which filmed Mission to Moscow now presents the Russians in such a flattering light that the onlooker might be excused for regarding them (and the Americans) as the Chosen People, with Stalin, Roosevelt and Ambassador Davies as the Three Persons of a new Trinity. Anybody who disagrees, or has ever presumed to disagree, with them is presented, by implication, as a fifth columnist of the worst sort. Now this is absurd — besides being undemocratic-and I think the Russians, being realistists, might be among the first to recognise the absurdity. The great value of Ambassador Davies’ book was that it was the honest and critical report of a man who, rejecting the Russian way of life for himself and for America, nevertheless found much to admire and respect in the Soviet system. Surely it was the fact that Davies was not one of the converted and that he found a good deal to criticise as well as much to praise that gave his testimony in favour of the U.S.S.R. such weight. But is there any real suggestion of this in the film? Although it is in several

respects a remarkable and interesting production, when you boil it ‘all down is there in fact anything much in it, from a political viewpoint, besides distortion of fact and insincere adulation which will satisfy nobody but the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) fanaties and will arouse nothing much except cynicism in the rest? fh * *&

Y interspersing newsreel shots; and similar factual material of indisputable veracity with studio re-enact-ments of selected portions of Davies’ book, and by employing skilled actors with some facial resemblance to the historic personalities they portray, the film achieves an air of authenticity that is, superficially, very effective. The book itself consists of official reports, State documents and diary jottings, and the producers must be given full credit for their technical ingenuity in shaping this ponderous mass of fact and opinion into some kind of cinematic form. For spectacle they have used, most notably, sequences from the magnificent Soviet film, Song of Youth, showing 4 May Day parade in Red Square, together with scenes of the Russian Ballet and of luxurious diplomatic receptions in Moscow, at which Soviet officials wear full evening-dress with complete aplomb, For "human interest" there is Mr. Davies’ daughter, who is squired by handsome young Russians, and Mr. Davies’ wife (played by Ann Harding) who géts along famously with Mime.’ Molotov, especially when she visits the latter's cosmetic salon. For comedy there are the diplomatic wisecracks with which Ambassador Davies and his Russian comrades make monkeys out -of the German, Japanese, and occasionally the British officials. This repartee is very clever and very amusing, but it would have been a great deal more convincing if the "baddies" had been allowed to score just one or two points; just as it would have added something to versimilitude if high life in Moscow had not so closely resembled high life in Hollywood, and if occasionally. a. note of doubt or criticism had been allowed to creep into Ambassador Davies’ voice. As for "intrigue," there are the Treason Trials. These actually lasted over many months, and occupy pages in the book: in the film they are Squeezed into a single courtroom sequence, and Marshal Tukachevsky (who had in reality ‘been secretly executed some time before, perhaps after a trial in camera, but perhaps not) is here shown facing his accusers in open court along with Bukharin, Yagoda and the rest of the plotters. As screen drama, this trial scene is very good, but the whole complicated issue of the Purges js presented with a simplicity naive in the extreme. Trotsky is uncompromisingly indicted as the major villain of the . piece, responsible for persuading ‘the accused to sell their country to Germany and Japan. a

{ bd bs ad CIMILARLY, the whole involved pattern of international diplomacy between 1936 and 1941, which puzzled all observers of the period (including Ambassador Davies) and caused the most contradictory antics among the supporters as well as the opponents of the Soviet Union, is explained away here in the simplest possible terms. Roosevelt and Stalin (who appears not very persuasively in the person of an actor mamed Mannart Kippen) are shown to have’ been right about everything, while the representatives of the other powers are either vacillating, stupid, or unscrupulous. There are some justifiable knocks at the British during

the Chamberlain era, but even the fier cest opponents of "appeasement" may haye some difficulty in swallowing the black-and-white explanation which the film offers for Stalin’s Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler: However, by taking an entry in the book out of its context and embroidering it, the film depicts a meeting between Davies and Churchill (who is laying bricks in his garden) which suggests that Churchill in 1938 wads almost as enlightened in his outlook towards Russia and world affairs as the statesmen of America. Towards the end we see Mr. Davies back in Washington presenting the fruits of his mission to a back-view impersonation of President Roosevelt, and then conducting an impassioned ‘campaign against opponents of his’ policy in Congress and outside. At last the film comes right back to Hollywood in order that Warners’ Celestial Choir may assure. us, in the phoniest of finales, that we really are our brother’s keeper. A Ss pe ry

INCE this is a controversial film, and this is a controversial review of it, I do not expect some of the views I have expressed to go unchallenged. I hope, however, that they will not be completely misunderstood. Like many other people, I will go much farther than Ambassador Davies in admiration of ‘the Russians: but I do not see why we should jettison our critical faculties at the behest of the Brothers Warner. Although I suggest you see the picture and judge for yourself, the points I have raised ate not trifling ones. Mission to Moscow throws into sharp relief that lack of discrimination, that uncritical extravagance, and that failure to recognise that grey, not black or white, is the predominating colour in the world, which constitute the great mental disease of our age. Hollywood itself has that disease very badly-and is doing more than almost any other agency to spread it. 4