Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973, TV)

The only Soviet television blockbuster that I know of, Seventeen Moments of Spring apparently was so popular when it was originally released that the crime rates would significantly drop when it was broadcast. It is still an annual staple of Russian television to this day--and I can see why. The show is less like a television production and more like a 14 hour film, with each hour adding to the maze of information and intrigue at a sprawling, sauntering pace. Seventeen Moments focuses on Stierlitz, a Soviet spy disguised as an officer in Nazi intelligence as WW2 is coming to a close. Stierlitz is a man who, because of his position, has to carefully use his reputation and wits to gain trickles of information and play the other Nazi officials into his hand (or against each other). In this regard, he is the antithesis of James Bond. Stierlitz is cunning and calculated, measuring every small action and speech against its potential consequences. He plans carefully and does not distract himself with womanizing or worldly luxuries. What's so fascinating about Seventeen Moments is that it does not depict the Nazis as evil caricatures, but rather as flesh-and-blood people, charming at times and ruthless at others, fearful of what will happen to them when they are inevitably defeated. In the world of Seventeen Moments, the ideological consistency of the Nazis has been whittled away by attrition, and the officers are all realizing it will soon be every man for himself. On the whole, Seventeen Moments of Spring lacks the flashy set pieces and action scenes of many western spy flicks, but what it provides is a slowly percolating, compelling, and suspenseful experience that is worth every second of the film it was printed on.

9/10

Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

Call it weird, call it wacky, Twilight's Last Gleaming is an engaging if not somewhat bizarre Cold War thriller starring Burt Lancaster as a disgraced, idealistic general who escapes from prison, hijacks a Titan II missile facility, and then proceeds to threaten destruction of the world if his three demands are not met. The demands involve some of the usual things--money and safe passage (by having the President volunteer himself as a hostage)--but the most interesting item is the public disclosure of a confidential document regarding the abuse of power in sending American troops to Vietnam. Sounds ridiculous, right? The film walks the line between conspiracy thriller and 70s political suspense film with a good cat-and-mouse game being played between Dell (Lancaster) and the US military. The supporting cast is fantastic including Paul Winfield, Melvyn Douglas, Joseph Cotten, and Richard Widmark among others. Charles Durning plays a sympathetic and somewhat wimpy president. Hardly believable, but his indecisive lip-biting and ranting is very entertaining. One element of the film that doesn't quite work is Aldrich's reliance on split-screen techniques to depict simultaneous events--I felt the tempo and synchronization of these shots never quite gelled as well as they should have, and it was more of a distraction than an asset. Regardless, it's a minor nuisance that hardly detracts from how fun the film is. A silly, lighthearted thriller at first, but keep watching and you'll see just how dark and overtly political the filmmakers were willing to go.

7/10