MORE ABOUT "MISSION| TO MOSCOW"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 288, 29 December 1944, Page 17

MORE ABOUT "MISSION| TO MOSCOW"

The Fi Ims,

by

G.

M.

HE controversy which I anticipated might be ~-provoked by my review. of Mission to Moscow does not seem to have eventuated. One correspondent (Ronald. L. Meek) stated a case in opposition to my remarks, and another (M.D., of Rotorua) replied last week by quoting what Quentin Reynolds has to say in The Curtain Rises about the film and the Russian reception of it. That seems to mé to have been such a good answer to Mr. Meek that I have no desire to join issue with him on my own account, except that I would like to refer to his concluding statement that my reference to the Tukachevsky trial was "irrelevant and in bad taste." It was nothing of the sort: on the contrary, it was perfectly proper and wholly relevant, because the film’s treatment ‘of the Tukachevsky case was an outstanding example. of that general distortion of fact and lack of critical discrimination about which I complained in my review. Marshal Tukachevsky was executed in 1937 without having been given an open trial; there is some dispute as to what sort of trial he had, if any, but it may have been a_ court-martial in camera. However, I was not objecting to the way the Russian authorities treated the Marshal; they perhaps had good reasons for behaving as they did. But what good reasons could: Warner Bros. have had for showing Tukachevsky as being still alive months later and standing his trial in open court along with other plotters? The only logical inference one may draw is that the producers were determined not only to leave out of the film anything that might be construed as criticism of the Soviet Union, but "also to misrepresent facts where necessary in order to paint the picture in the rosiest possible hues. Surely the truth has some value in itself. In the long run this kind of propaganda can only be harmful: it is certainly not likely to assist true international understanding. % % * ND there this particular local argument may well be left-at least so far as I am concerned. But the debate over the validity of Mission to Moscow was, of course, hotly conducted in other countries long before the film reached here, and readers may be interested in some aspects’ of it. According to Time (May 17, 1943)

American critics, historians and columnists were in "unusual accord" in condemning the picture. They asked these two. questions: ."Was, this movie, which deliberately twisted fact and history to put the rosiest of all possible lights on U.S.-Soviet relations, the way to improve those relations?" and "Was it fair and honest to present such a distortion of momentous events to the U.S. people as final truth?" With the exception of the Communists, who gave the film allout praise, the answer from all of them (says Time) was "No." © In the New York Times, Anne O’Hare McCormick argued that the film "fails utterly to do justice to Russia, grossly misrepresents the United States, and

would not sell international co-operation to anybody." Edmund Wilson, a literary critic who was formerly a Marxist, described it as "a fraud on the American people." Dorothy Thompson said, "It has been suggested that this film needs cutting. It does-indefinitely." Life declared: that "The U.S.S.R., its leaders and its foreign policies are whitewashed to a degree far exceeding Davies’ book." But the most complete exposition of the film’s errors and the most withering criticism of its objectives was given by the philosopher Professor John Dewey, and the writer Suzanne La Fellette, who were chairman and secretary respectively of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Moscow purge trials of 1937-38. In a joint 2000-word letter to the New York Times, these two described the film as "the first instance in this country of totalitarian propaganda which falsifies history through the distortion, omission, or pure invention of facts, and whose effect can only be to confuse the public in its thought and its loyalties." Speaking of the trials, these two ‘critics said that dramatic licence might excuse the telescoping of them, but could not excuse the presentation of Marshal Tukachesky. "The film," they contended, "falsifies not only the trials but Mr. Davies’s own reports on them." And after listing many other instances of what they regarded as errors or misrepresentation of’ fact, they ended by saying: "The whole effect is to discredit Congress and at the same time to represent the Soviet dictatorship as an advanced democracy . .. the film is anti-British, anti-Congress, anti-demo-cratic, and anti-truth. It deepens that crisis in morals which is the fundamental issue in the modern world, It is a major defeat for the democratic cause." ; %* % x N Great Britain, however, the political controversy over Mission to Moscow, though still hot, was not nearly so onesided. The Times supported the picture, declaring: "Its admirable aim is to underline the importance of collective security in peace as well as in war... and to overcome any latent "suspicions America may have of its Russian ally." The Manchester Guardian was equally enthusiastic: "Actual fact and _ repre"sented fact have for once in a way been blended with complete success. The result is an astonishing piece of film-.

making." The News Chronicle ‘surmised that some people in Britain- and not only politicians-would not welcome the film because "they won't like to be reminsled of their own ludicrous misconceptions about Soviet Russia and their failure to understand the terrifying realities in Europe." In the non-political sphere, this was the verdict of C. A. Lejeune in the Observer: ". . .. If it had even stuck to the former American Ambassador’s book and reported his findings judicially, it might have been a pity the film is such a bore. As it hasn’t, it isn’t. It is wellintentioned but misleading. Fortunately is doesn’t mislead persuasively enough to do much harm," ’