The Moviegoer

Admirers of Soviet cinematic exports to recently appear in this country will find "Ivan The Terrible" a characteristic product, replete with the usual recurring armies of Russian extras either besieging a Tartar castle with catapults or recovering Stalingrad with bazookas. Sergei Eisenstein, who introduced wartime American audiences to Russian military history with "Alexander Nevsky" and "Suvarov," has again probed into his country's past to come up with "Ivan The Terrible" in the process of fashioning the Duchy of Moscow into all the Russias.

Language, to the credit of Eisenstein, is no barrier for a foreigner's complete understanding of his work, for his camera, combined with the tumultuous score of Sergei Prokofieff, fully expresses the emotional current, and the plot is distinctly visual. Photographic effects, indeed, are the strongest element in the picture, with dramatic composition in brilliant silhouetted contrast present in almost every scene. Artistic technique, in this respect, reaches its best with a show of Ivan hovering over a globe against the white interior of the imperial palace.

Clarity of mood, however, while always appropriate in a photographer, can and is carried to over-extended lengths by the actors of "Ivan The Terrible." Therefore the character development of Ivan, for example, beset by traitor boyar noblemen within his court and hosts of foes without, progresses on a very unrefined level, and a few intimate glimpses fail to humanize a somewhat stereotyped symbol. Contemporary political significance, injected into the concluding scene when Ivan successfully turns to his people for support against his treacherous lieutenants, does unnecessary violence to subtlety for the sake of propaganda.

As a series of historical tapestries, "Ivan The Terrible" nevertheless remains impressive entertainment. If the episodic nature of the narrative is admitted, each individual sequence has independent unity of pace. The coronation of young Ivan, the sacking of Tartar Kazan, a deathbed scene which ably reproduces the oriental mysticism of medieval Russian Christianity, and the loneliness of Ivan's old age as his princes desert to the jackals baying around his borders--all these make striking individual images. Unfortunately, they are strung together in ponderous disunity and confusion.