Pro-Soviet Slant


The Soviets, in the person of the ruthless yet avuncular Col. Stock (Oscar Homolka) are pitted against the Texas facist, Ed Begley, who rallies his stormtroopers like the Fuhrer at a Nuremberg rally. Ed also invokes the wrath of God which makes him a religious zealot, of course, against the poor atheistic, totalitarian regime that is merely "defending" itself.

Incredibly, Col. Stock calls out the Latvians as Nazi sympathizers during the war, not mentioning, of course, that at the time of this movie Latvia was occupied by the Soviets and was no longer an independent country.

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I just saw the movie for the first time yesterday, and I can see where it might give the impression of having a pro-Soviet slant, but only because it's a somewhat dumbed-down adaptation of a much more complex novel.

The film exaggerates General Midwinter's rabid anti-communism to cartoon proportions, and adds a ludicrous invasion sequence to give the story a big cinematic climax (quick question: did "Harry Palmer" really walk all the way back to Helsinki from the middle of a frozen Gulf of Finland..?)

In Deighton's book the conflict isn't between Communists and Capitalists: it's between professionals and amateurs. Palmer and Colonel Stok, despite being ideological adversaries, were both professionals and shared a common bond of professional knowledge and experience.

Here's Deighton's protagonist (nameless in the book, and better that way) speaking to his one-time friend and misguided foe Harvey Newbegin, in Leningrad:

"Listen, Harvey. Just because you've been playing electronic monopoly out there in Texas for too long, don't get the idea that you're in the intelligence business. Every senior-grade Russian intelligence man knows that I came into town on the train last night. They know who I am just as I know who they are. No one puts on false hairpieces and pebbles in one shoe and sketches the fortifications anymore."

Regarding your other point: I wouldn't expect a Russian like Stok to admit that his country was "occupying" Latvia during the Cold War. Once again, the original novel gives that scene a deeper political and historical perspective, all but lost in the superficial screen version.



"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." Mark Twain

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It's a satire, the Russians are portrayed as human beings and the Latvians as nazi collaborators and antisemites, which when you see the memorials they build to the SS is understandable. General Midwinter rather foreshadows neo nazis like Reagan and bUShA don't you think?

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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At first, your message made little sense...Reagan and Bush,Neo-Nazis? Then,I realized your entire message is a satire. Good one, you had me going there for about a minute.

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Tell that to the Nicaraguans and the Iraqis.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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Reagan opposed Communism, one of the 2 greatest scourges of the 20th Century. That's why depicting Communism in any humane way as in The Billion Dollar Brain was an abomination.

But let's stick to the movie. At the time of its production in the '60's, Reagan was guv of Cal. and Bush was smoking weed.

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Fascism, Stalinism and bourgeois liberalism are the bastard children of C19th liberalism. Stalinism was the antithesis of communism, as the Kronstadt Mutineers of 1931 would tell you, if they hadn't been murdered by the Bolsheviks. Reagan traded drugs to buy guns to evade a congressional ban on his terrorist policy towards the people of Nicaragua, among his other crimes against humanity.

BDB is a satire because it demonstrated that while individuals had a code, their employers were all the same, greedy bastards who didn't care who died as long as they kept their meal ticket. One of my favourite scenes is outside where there is a childrens' swing which looks like a swastika haivng a rest, it foreshadowed Midwinter's MM logo.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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You're all over the map. When you settle on a zip code, check back.

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I have an O level, you know.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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I have an O level, you know.
Oooo, I guess that makes you special, huh...

lol...

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Your sense of humor is an abomination.

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Obama has a fine sense of humor.

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Latvians do NOT build memorials to the SS, but rather to the brave Latvian men who defended their fatherland against the re-occupation by the murderous Soviet scum. That they were members of an SS division, is of an entirely secondary importance and by no means something to hold against them; they didn't exactly have a choice of fighting under Latvian own colors, considering that Latvia was under Nazi occupation, now did they? And the vast majority of the Latvian Legion was conscripted, anyway... not that there's anything wrong with volunteering to give hell to Commies and get some payback for the mass murders and deportations the filthy red animals had perpetrated during the year-long occupation.

Also, Latvians were hardly any greater antisemites than your average European nation at the time.



"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

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I would hardly call Frederick Forsyth a Communist sympathiser, but Latvian as well as German SS are running the concentration camp at Riga in The Odessa File.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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The Soviet Union was not only more complex than you imagine but more complex than you can imagine.

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