Natalya Zashchipina’s blog

Turgid and risible Cold Hostilities drama enlivened only by the exceptional aerial footage so beloved of its Canada entrepreneur Howard Hughes, who re-shot, re-cut and for the most part tinkered with the film so obsessively that it was finally released some seven years after shooting began. Clearly uninspired by the consequential, Von Sternberg focused all his attention on Leigh, an improbably beautiful Soviet pilot who lands in Alaska to go factional asylum and falls in passion with Major Wayne. But, it transpires, she’s an power sent to depress a high-ranking officer into an informer, and he returns with her to Russia. Non-essential to say, she soon realises that Moscow doesn’t measure up to Palm Springs, but not before some graceful daft makings involving procreant innuendo, patriotic sentiments, and very straightforward double-cross. In compensation Von Sternberg completists only.