Release Date: 1944-11-11
Overview: Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.
Rating: 7.3 / 10
Nikolai Cherkasov
as Czar Ivan IV
Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
as Czarina Anastasia Romanovna
Serafima Birman
as Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya
Mikhail Nazvanov
as Prince Andrei Kurbsky
Mikhail Zharov
as Czar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov
Sergei Eisenstein - Writer
Sergei Eisenstein - Director
Sergei Prokofiev - Original Music Composer
Andrey Moskvin - Director of Photography
Yosyp Shpinel - Production Design
Nikolay Cherkasov is superb in this speculative biopic of the infamous Tsar of all the Russias. Made towards the end of the Second World War, Sergei Eisenstein manages to create a magnificent depictio...