Set Your VCRs

Monday, April 5th, 2004

According to Set Your VCRs, “tomorrow afternoon at 3, eastern time, Turner Classic Movies will be airing Mission to Moscow.”

No, not the Police Academy sequel: This is a World War 2-era picture aimed at showing Americans just how wonderful the USSR is. Directed by Michael Curtiz and written by Howard Koch — the director and co-writer of Casablanca — it’s one of the few universally despised movies that’s even worse than its reputation. The film doesn’t just laud the Soviet economy and glorify Stalin; it defends the purges, complete with a quarter-hour dedicated to arguing that Leon Trotsky was a Nazi agent.

Consider my morbid curiosity piqued.

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