Moscow on the Hudson
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Moscow on the Hudson is a 1984 comedy drama starring Robin Williams, and directed by Paul Mazursky. Williams plays a Russian circus musician who defects from the Soviet Union while on a visit to the United States.
Williams' co-stars in this film were Maria Conchita Alonso, Elya Baskin, Savely Kramarov, Alejandro Rey and Cleavant Derricks.
The movie's poster was involved in a 1987 court case involving violation of copyright. The court found that the poster violated Saul Steinberg's copyright for a 1976 New Yorker cover. See Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 663 F. Supp. 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1987).
[edit] Plot
It's a bittersweet story set against the backdrop of the Cold War in the pre-perestroika years of the early 1980s. Vladimir Ivanov (Williams) a saxophonist with the Moscow circus, ekes out a living but is miserably unhappy. He lives in a crowded apartment with his entire extended family, with no privacy to express his love for his girlfriend. He sucks up to his superior, standing in line for hours to buy shoes to obtain his favor. He cruises the streets, scrounging for black market petrol for his tiny car. He buffers between his crazy grandfather and the KGB, who want to arrest him for shouting anti-Soviet slogans out the window.
As a rare treat, the circus troupe is sent to perform in New York City. Ivanov's clown friend (played by Elya Baskin), who has talked of little else but defecting, changes his mind at the last minute, and Ivanov, who had opposed the scheme as reckless and foolhardy suddenly decides to do it. He hides behind a perfume counter at Bloomingdale's, his head inadvertently nudging the pretty clerk's backside under her skirt. In a scene of comic drama and nobility, Williams stands up to his Soviet boss and demands asylum in the United States.
From here, the movie takes an unexpected turn, as life in the Big Apple is not what Ivanov had expected. He must find a job, he speaks very little English, he's lonely and disoriented and afraid of being forcibly repatriated. He is forced to live in terribly poor neighborhoods, takes low paying and menial jobs, and finds that his welcome is not as warm as expected from Americans. In the end, although he finds that the American Dream isn't what it seems, he learns that it can be whatever he wants it to be. The last scene is a poignant shot of Vladmir playing his saxophone on the street--something he could never have aspired to do in Moscow.
The film features the late Soviet comedic actor Saveliy Kramarov, as a KGB officer, in one of his first Western film roles.
