Mission to Moscow

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Mission to Moscow is a 1943 movie directed by Michael Curtiz with a screen play by Howard Koch based on the book by Ambassador Joseph E. Davies. The picture was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers.

The picture was a major studio release, and an unabashed pro-Soviet propaganda film. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) would later use Mission to Moscow as one of the three noted examples of pro-Soviet propaganda films made by Hollywood, the other two pictures being RKO's The North Star and MGM's Song of Russia.

The origin of the picture came about through Ambassador Davies, the U.S. representative to the Soviet Union between 1937 and 1941. A self-professed capitalist, Davies was sent by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to assess the readiness of the Soviet people for war and the reliability of Joseph Stalin as an ally. Today the film is attacked as a glorification of Stalinism. Davies himself introduces the film, where his part is played by Walter Huston. Ann Harding plays Marjorie Davies, Gene Lockhart is Vyacheslav Molotov, Henry Daniell is Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Dudley Field Malone plays Winston Churchill. Mission to Moscow was scored by Max Steiner with cinematography by Bert Glennon.

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Mission to Moscow at the Internet Movie Database Mission to Moscow was made at the behest of F.D.R. in order to garner more support for the Soviet Union during WWII. It was from the book by Joseph E. Davies, former U.S. Ambassador To Russia. The movie covers the political machinations in Moscow just before the start of the war and presents Stalin's Russia in a very favorable light. So much so, that the movie was cited years later by the House Un-American Activities Commission and was largely responsible for the screenwriter, Howard Koch being Blacklisted.