The Iron Curtain (film)

The Iron Curtain
Directed by	William Wellman
Screenplay by	Milton Krims
Produced by	Sol C. Siegel
Starring	Dana Andrews Gene Tierney
Narrated by	Reed Hadley
Cinematography	Charles G. Clarke
Edited by	Louis R. Loeffler
Music by	Alfred Newman
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date	May 12, 1948
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$2 million (US rentals)

The Iron Curtain is a 1948 black-and-white thriller film starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, directed by William Wellman. The film was based on the memoirs of Igor Gouzenko. Principal photography was done on location in Ottawa, Canada by Charles G. Clarke. The film was later re-released as Behind the Iron Curtain.

In Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox, Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich unsuccessfully sued the film's distributor, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, in New York court, for using musical works of his that had fallen into the public domain.

Plot

Igor Gouzenko (Dana Andrews), an expert at deciphering codes, comes to the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada in wartime 1943, along with a Soviet military colonel, Trigorin (Frederic Tozere), and a major, Kulin (Eduard Franz), to set up a base of operations.

Warned of the sensitive and top-secret nature of his work, Igor is put to a test by his superiors, who have the seductive Nina Karanova (June Havoc) try her wiles on him. Igor proves loyal to not only the cause but to his wife, Anna (Gene Tierney), who arrives in Ottawa shortly thereafter with the news that she is pregnant.

Trigorin and his security chief, Ranov (Stefan Schnabel), meet with John Grubb (Berry Kroeger), the founder of Canada's branch of the Communist Party. One of their primary targets is uranium being used for atomic energy by Dr. Harold Norman (Nicholas Joy), whom they try to recruit.

In the years that pass, the atomic bomb ends the war. Anna, who has borne a son, now has serious doubts about the family's future. Igor begins to share these doubts, particularly after one of his colleagues, Kulin (Eduard Franz), has a breakdown and is placed under arrest. Once Igor is told that he is going to be reassigned back to Moscow, he decides to take action. He takes secret documents from the Embassy and tells Anna to hide them, in case anything happens to him. Trigorin and Ranov threaten his life, and the lives of his and Anna's families in the Soviet Union, but Igor refuses to return the papers.

Grubb and several others are called back to the Soviet Union to answer for their failures. Canada's government places the Gouzenkos in protective custody and grants them residence. The film ends with the proviso that the family lives in hiding protected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "Yet they have not lost faith in the future. They know that ultimate security for themselves and their children lies in the survival of the democratic way of life".

Cast

• Dana Andrews as Igor Gouzenko
• Gene Tierney as Anna Gouzenko
• June Havoc as Nina Karanova
• Berry Kroeger as John Grubb, aka 'Paul'
• Edna Best as Mrs. Albert Foster, neighbor
• Stefan Schnabel as Col. Ilya Ranov, embassy attache
• Eduard Franz as Maj. Semyon Kulin
• Nicholas Joy as Dr. Harold Preston Norman, aka 'Alec'
• Frederic Tozere as Col. Aleksandr Trigorin

Production

Twentieth Century-Fox bought the rights to Gouzenko's articles about his experiences as Hollywood began producing films regarding Communist infiltration in the late '40s. The studio also purchased the rights to two historical books on Soviet espionage, George Moorad's Behind the Iron Curtain and Richard Hirsch's The Soviet Spies: The Story of Russian Espionage in North America, though no material from the two books was actually used in the film.

Soviet sympathizers attempted unsuccessfully to disrupt location shooting in Ottawa, where Fox captured exteriors during a cold Canadian winter.

External links

• The Iron Curtain at IMDb
• The Iron Curtain at the TCM Movie Database
• The Iron Curtain at AllMovie
• The Iron Curtain at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films