Sign Up

Already a user?

The Iron Curtain
William A. Wellman

The Iron Curtain

  • Thriller
RELEASE

1948-06-16

BUGET

N/A

LENGTH

87 min

Description

The Iron Curtain is based on the actual 1945 case of Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, (Dana Andrews), who, after careful training, was assigned to the U.S.S.R. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada in the midst of World War II. Eventually, Gouzenko defected with 109 pages of material implicating several high level Canadian officials, outlined the steps taken to secure information about the the details of the nuclear bomb via numerous sleeper cells established throughout North America. The scandal that resulted when details of this case were publicized by American columnist Drew Pearson in early 1946 involved Canada, Britain and the United States.

Reviews

CinemaSerf PFP

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

Dana Andrews is Igor Gouzenko, posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa as a cypher clerk. He has no difficulty with his orders to keep himself to himself and to be polite but distant from his Canadian hosts. This becomes more problematic when he is joined by his wife Anna (Gene Tierney) who has more difficulty with the isolation their existence brings; particularly when they have a son so shorty after the end of the War, he decides that the grand design being proposed by his superiors is not for him, or his family, so decides to amass a collection of crucial documents from his legation and defect - illuminating a complex network of secret Soviet activities that penetrate to the heart of the Canadian military and political systems. His problem is - who is going to believe him; and can he ensure everyone's safety while he tries to persuade the authorities that he is for real. Based on true events, it's quite a poignant reminder of just how pivotal Canada was during and immediately after the war in terms of it's own significant scientific input and as an intermediary between the USA and the UK. Dana Andrews deals with his character's crisis of conscience quite well, and Tierney brings a sort of innocence to the proceedings that motivates his decision. I found the G-man style narration from Charles Tannen a bit over the top, and the dialogue and generally lacklustre direction left too much of the peril of the scenario to our imagination. Still, it's quite enthralling at times and the tightly knit cast keep it interesting for 90 minutes.