Mission to Moscow (1943)

Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias ... see more  , Eleanor Parker , Frieda Inescort , Helmut Dantine , Richard Travis , Victor Francen , Henry Daniell , Barbara Everest , Dudley Field Malone , Roman Bohnen , Maria Palmer , Moroni Olsen , Minor Watson , Vladimir Sokoloff , Maurice Schwartz , Jerome Cowan , Manart Kippen , Kathleen Lockhart , Kurt Katch , Felix Basch , Frank Puglia , John Abbott , Charles Trowbridge , Leigh Whipper , Clive Morgan , Doris Lloyd , Olaf Hytten , Arthur Gilmore , George Sorel , Duncan Renaldo , Nino Bellini , Ferdinand Schumann-Heink , Rolf Lindau , Peter Michael , George Davis , Jean Del Val , Emory Parnell , Pat O'Malley , Mark Strong , Albert D'Arno , Rudolf Steinbeck , Gino Corrado , Glenn Strange , Oliver Cross , Ray Walker , Frank Faylen , Joseph Crehan , Ross Ford , Warren Douglas , Barbara Brown , Wallis Clark , Hans Schumm , Ernest Golm , Lisa Golm , Henry Victor , Louis V. Arco , Erwin Kalser , Pierre Watkin , Edward Van Sloan , Michael Visaroff , Alex Akimoff , Sam Savitsky , Henry Guttman , Elizabeth Archer , Sandor Szabo Sr. , Virginia Christine , Daniel Ocko , David Hoffman , Lumsden Hare , Ernie S. Adams , Herbert Ashley , Hooper Atchley , Egon Brecher , Oliver Blake , Monte Blue , Eugene Borden , George Carleton , Maurice Cass , Feodor Chaliapin Jr. , Luke Chan , Cyd Charisse , Edmund Cobb , Harry Cording , Noel Cravat , Jacqueline Dalya , William B. Davidson , Jean De Briac , John Dilson , Ben Erway , Fred Essler , Frank Ferguson , Robert C. Fischer , James Flavin , Lee Tung Foo , William Forrest , Jack Gardner , Gene Gary , Sam Goldenberg , Gregory Golubeff , Christine Gordon , William Gould , Alexander Granach , John Hamilton , Herbert Heyes , Louis Jean Heydt , Mauritz Hugo , Ted Jacques , Frank Jaquet , Allen Jung , Eddie Kane , Edward Keane , Bill Kennedy , Jack Kenney , Charles La Torre , Ivan Lebedeff , George Lessey , Marion Lessing , Arthur Loft , Michael Mark , Mike Mazurki , Alex Melesh , Howard Mitchell , Forbes Murray , Martin Noble , Frank Penny , Francis Pierlot , Emil Rameau , Frank Reicher , Georges Renavent , Lionel Royce , Dick Ryan , Konstantin Shayne , Robert Shayne , Tamara Shayne , Leonid Snegoff , Ivan Triesault , Tom Tully , Peggy Watts , John Wengraf , Marek Windheim , Joan Winfield , Isabel Withers , Victor Wong , Jack Young , John Maxwell , Alfred Zeisler , Betty Roadman , Michel Panaieff , Frank Hemphill , Ernst Hausman , Edgar Licho , Tina Menard , Loulette Sablon , Frank Wayne , Jean Wong , Joseph Kamaryt , Zoya Karabanova , Al Kunde , Billy Louie , Marie Melesch , Irina Semochenko , Evelynne Smith

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. ... read more turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi