★ 8 / 10
I've seen Ernest Borgnine here and there as
victor o
I've seen Ernest Borgnine here and there as a supporting lead, I know he's been a leading man before but nothing that speaks to me. Plus, he practically owns…
I've seen Ernest Borgnine here and there as a supporting lead, I know he's been a leading man before but nothing that speaks to me. Plus, he practically owns supporting character roles with his strong but warm personality. It was the story itself that got me interested after learning about it on a History Channel special on the Cold War and I got to admit I was pleasantly surprised watching this.
The 1950s were the heyday of the hysteria of the Cold War with people seeing Russian spies everywhere. Thanks to some shows like The Americans and Black Widow, it turns out some of that hysteria was justified as the Soviet Union planted thousands of spies across the United States to bring it down either in a war or peace. Thankfully the Cold War has ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, and it's thanks to real-life people like Boris Morros who brought it down.
This movie is a dramatization of Boris Morros' life as a counterspy for the Soviet Union for over a decade. Called Boris Mitrov for the dramatic license but this is an amazing telling of his story, one that should be told and taught in classrooms when learning about the Cold War. From being manipulated into spying for the Soviets as a way to get his father into the United States after obtaining the right to enter it himself, Mitrov worked among communist sympathizers within the entertainment industry and went far publicly as a composer but doing his bit for the Soviets. But thanks to the American intelligence services finding out about Mitrov convince him that the Soviets had lied to him for years and had done him a disservice in spying for them. They turn him and like a true patriot get him to spy against the Soviets.
Mitrov is so successful a counterspy as he obtains almost incredible access to Soviet espionage activities that he truly was a hero uncovering such a massive plot against America.
I was surprised to enjoy this movie, a great spy thriller story, as well as Borgnine's talent as a leading man. He is more than the happy-go-lucky character actor that I have often seen him. What a great film and a great performance.
★ 7 / 10
I'm beginning to see things that I never saw before
sol-kay
***SPOILERS*** Somewhat far fetched Cold War drama with Earnest Borgnine playing the very reluctant Hollywood film producer and double agent Boris Mitrov who's…
***SPOILERS*** Somewhat far fetched Cold War drama with Earnest Borgnine playing the very reluctant Hollywood film producer and double agent Boris Mitrov who's manipulated by both sides The USA and Soviet Union to do their dirty work. Boris had been suckered into helping his native country the Soviet Union by Col. Vadja Kubelov, Alexander Scourby, the first secretary to the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C in the promise that it would help him have his father Papa Mitrov, Vladimar Sokoloff, and brothers giving free passage to the United States.
During Boris' involvement with Kubelov & Co. he's been watched by the CIB or CIA who've been following his every move. The CIB needing to get someone inside the Soviet Union to infiltrate it's spying apparatus sees in Boris the perfect pasty who with his dealing with the Soviet here at home can only go along with them or else face life imprisonment or worse. Meanwhile Boris' Soviet handler Col. Kubelov want's him, as repayment for having his father released from a Soviet work camp, to sell out his film production company to millionaire and undercover communist Adrian Benson, Ed Prentiss, in order to have him secretly make subversive and pro Soviet movies to brainwash the American public.
Things start to get very complicated when Boris, who was ordered by his now CIB controllers, goes to West Berlin to make a documentary and use it as cover to get himself into the Soviet Union to work for it's KGB as a spy against the United States. Taken in by the Moscow KGB chief Gen. Chapayen, Friedrick Joloff, as one of his newest and brightest discoveries Boris in no time at all memorizes every Soviet agent in the United States, which numbers in the thousands. Boris' cover is soon blown when Benson finds out that his house had been bugged by the CIB and together with his wife Helen, Colleen Dewhurst, makes a run for it across the US/Mexican border.
Benson who was allowed to escape by the CIB, so his arrest wouldn't blow Boris's cover in the USSR, get's to Moscow via East Berlin and desperately tries to get in touch with Gen. Chapayen to alert him that Boris is rally a double agent. Boris who was informed by friend and CIB agent Avery, Kerwin Mathews, that the jig was up and told to check out of the country and take a plane to East Berlin and then make it to the US controlled west before he's caught and shot on the spot by the KBG as a US spy.
Just when you, and Boris, think that it's all over it's then when the action really starts with Boris on the run all over the communist controlled city trying to make it back to West Berlin and both safety and freedom. Doing a James Bond bit three years before James Bond was ever introduced to the movie going public Boris gets away from an East Berlin policeman shooting him dead with a secret cyanide dart gun and then crosses back into West Berlin only to find out that the East Berlin secret police are there waiting for him.
The ending was just too much to take with Boris running around handcuffed being chased by communist agents in the middle of US controlled West Berlin with not a single US, as well as West German, soldier or police official coming to his aid. Unbelievable and outlandish shoot-out, again with on one in the city coming to their aid, at the CIB headquarters with Boris taking matters into his own hand by cold cocking the chief communist agent with his handcuffs; this after Avery and his fellow CIB agents ended up getting shot and killed by the communist agents.
Boris by getting the names and addresses, that he kept only in his head, of thousands of Soviet agents all over the United States wrecks the entire Soviet spying network that it's so painfully nurtured over the last fifteen years. In the end Boris get a commendation for his services from the US congress and his involvement with the Soviet Union is forgotten about since he did it to help his family members not the Soviets. As for Boris' bothers back in the USSR it's fond out, from pop Mitrov himself, that they actually died in a Siberian prison camp and were being used, in Boris being told that they were alive, by Col.Kubelov to keep Boris in line and under the KGB's and Soviets control.
80%
AUDIENCE
6.2/10
610
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Please seed the 1080p