Grigoriy Gay Movies
The true story of a tragic 1928 arctic expedition provides the basis for this adventure drama that was a joint Italian and Russian co-production. Peter Finch stars as General Umberto Nobile, who is visited in Rome by the ghosts of those whose lives were taken in his ill-fated mission forty years earlier. In flashback, Nobile recalls the attempt to cross the North Pole by flying dirigible, the Italia. When the airship crashes, Nobile and his crew are scattered across the ice, left to struggle against the freezing cold elements and local polar bears, among other hazards. In an effort to save the expedition, the great explorer Roald Amundsen (Sean Connery), the first man to reach the South Pole, is dispatched to rescue Nobile. When Amundsen disappears (never to be heard from again), an icebreaker is launched to bring national hero Nobile home, but at the expense of his crewmates. Although The Red Tent (1971) was considered a costly box office failure, the film did win a Golden Globe for Best English Language Foreign Film. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1966
The impossibility of love between the classes forms the basis of this tragic tale. The story begins when a poor clerk falls in love with a princess. The smitten lad begins following her everywhere and writing passionate declarations of his love. She is touched by his affection, but because of the class difference realizes that their love can never be. He then sends her the one valuable thing he owns--a golden bracelet inlaid with garnets. It had belonged to his mother. Again the princess is deeply moved. Unfortunately, her insensitive peers laugh at the simple gift and the distraught clerk is so ashamed that he kills himself. The princess, against tradition, attends the funeral and offers her condolences. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ariadna Shengelaya, Igor Ozerov, (more)
Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations. Rarely seen in the US, this Hamlet (or Gamlet, as it was known in Russia) is not always successful, but is certainly more innovative -- and lively -- than Olivier's wildly overpraised 1948 version. Director Grigori Kozintsev would follow Hamlet with an equally radical adaptation of King Lear in 1970. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Mikhail Nazvanov, (more)
