The underlying theme of the movie -- Uncle Joe Stalin's mania for grabbing displaced people he wanted after WWII -- is unusual, and the cast is an odd lot: Walter Pidgeon as a one-armed British colonel with plenty of war guilt; Janet Leigh's starlet turn as a Russian ballerina; Angela Lansbury as a young and saucy WREN; and, as the strangest casting, Ethel Barrymore as a nun. Plenty of Cold War anti-Red flavoring throughout that looks pretty stilted today, but the acting -- especially from Pidgeon in the lead -- is heartfelt without being maudlin.
Review of The Red Danube
