Miss V from Moscow (1942)

Truly Dreadful Film

Admirable film.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

MISS V FROM MOSCOW is a dreadful wartime spy thriller made contemporaneously with WW2. The story is about a female Russian spy who steps into the gap when a lookalike German spy is killed. The female spy then teams up with an American agent working in conjunction with the French resistance in Nazi-occupied France to feed secrets and information to the Allied forces.The plot sounds mildly interesting but everything about this low budget movie is routine. The attempts at suspense and tension are quite laughable and for much of the running time nothing much really happens apart from a couple of characters chit-chatting. Russia is presented favourably in this propaganda movie which is as you would expect given that we were firm allies back then. Although some of the supposedly straight scenes are unintentionally amusing this doesn't even qualify as so-bad-it's-good entertainment.

The Alpha DVD cover for "Miss V From Moscow" makes it look like a dynamic star vehicle for a not-so-well-known-today female star of the 1930s and 1940s, Lola Lane. But it is not quite that: the production is very cheap, and relies exclusively on stock footage for any "large-scale" action. But even when the action is small-scale, Lane is still not very involved in it; she does have a couple of good lines ("Don't you think Wolf is more to the point?" or "A great humanitarian indeed. He says so himself.") but otherwise this is a disappointing vehicle for her. And it's also pretty unconvincing as a Russian-undercover-helping-French-resistance-against-the-Nazis as well, the main reason being that everyone speaks English 90% of the time. However, the film does have some moments that remain topical to this day: paranoid leaders committing unspeakable crimes in the name of "the greater good" will never go out of fashion, or power, in any continent of the world. They just hide their crimes better these days. ** out of 4.

Silly, uneven WW II flick, with good picture quality, but poor sound quality. Lola Lane ( Vera Marova ) gets top billing, but its pretty much an ensemble spy thriller. Everyone says rather silly inane things at such a serious time, and the acting by Lane and John Wosper (Colonel Heinrich) is quite bad and stilted, which may explain why this was Wosper's first and last known role in film. Kathryn Sheldon plays Minna, the maid, who suspects that Marova is an imposter. Sherman Lowe and Arthur St. Claire had written nine movies together between 1940 and 1946, but I suspect that this was not their best work...I'm surprised that this was released on DVD... Noel Madison as Kleiss, had made 70 films by this time, and its a shame he didn't have a larger role. They include some footage of Hitler's speeches, with obvious over-dubbing. One thing to note --some credit list corrections -- as of today, Jan 25, 2008, in the credits at the beginning and end of the film itself, Noel Madison is listed as "Capt. Anton Kleis", yet on IMDb, it shows "Police Chief Fritz Kleiss". In the film, Richard Kipling is listed as "Dr. Suchevsky" but IMDb has spelling "Suchevcky". The film credits show "Gerald Naughton", but IMDb shows "Gerry Naughton". The film credits show the spelling "Heinrick", but IMDb has "Heinrich". The film shows "Paul Weigle", but IMDb has it spelled as Paul Weigel".... attempting to correct the credits....

**SOME SPOILERS** Called into the the office of the Moscow Bureau of Counter Espionage Vera Marocve, code name Miss V,is told by Commissar Krotov that he has a secret assignment for her behind the lines in Nazi occupied Paris. It turns out that the top Nazi spy Greta Hiller has been killed by the French Resistance and her body buried and hidden from the Germans. Vera then find out that Miss V is a dead-ringer for the dead Grteta Hiller and that will give her all the cover that she needs to find out what the Germans are planing in the conduct of their war against the Soviet Union and her allies the USA & UK.Outragiously bad wartime movie with Miss V together with the French resistance trapped behind the lines and a number of fellow Soviet agents in Paris saving a major US/UK convoy from being annihilated by a fleet Nazi U-Boats, or wolf packs, in the frigid North Atlantic.Being arrested by the Nazis almost as soon as she got to France Mis V doesn't realize that she was given a golden cigarette-lighter by the French Quisling, artist Henri Vevallier,that was really a conformation of her being the ace German Spy Greta Hiller. It was given to Greta by the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself for her excellent service to the Fatherland.With Miss V now accepted by the Nazi police and Gestapo as German spy Greta Hiller she get's in touch with Henri to have him get the important information; a German planned attack on the convoy back to Moscow to prevent the evil Nazi plan from being executed. The usual wartime-propaganda that you would expect from a movie where the USSR the Evil Emprie, as President Reagen called it, is made to look as wholesome and as American as apple pie. Since the USSR was tying down as much as 300 German infantry and amour divisions in a life and death struggle with the Nazis on the Eastern Front, to the USA/UK engaging less then then 5 (The Afrika Corps) in North Africa, back then in 1942 when the film was released.Miss V using her wits and all of her charms to get her admiring but naive German officer boyfriend Col. Wolfgang Heinrick to tell her everything he knows about the secret German U-Boat attack planned on the allied convoy. Which in the end has him put against a wall and shot by the Gestapo. With the help of two allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, Steve & Gerry, Miss V and her Soviet contact Dr. Suchevcky in Paris Miss V gets the news back to Moscow before the Gestapo break into Dr. Schevcky's hideout, a gin mill, where he has a secret wireless hidden in a hollowed out beer barrel.Making their escape Miss V and her fellow Nazi-fighters make it to safety back in the USSR as Dr. Suchevcky stays and dies at his post, the radio, to get the vital information back to his boss and thus save the allied convoy from total destruction by the German Navy and Luftwaffe.Embarrassingly bad but still watchable, due to it's unintentional comedic story-line and acting, war-time movie. With the Commissar giving a patriot little speech at the end of the film about how we all have to stick together in our struggle against the Nazis. We also have a film clip of Adolf Hitler giving a rousing and rip roaring speech without sub-titles, that you can only understand if you know German,in what were told is in Paris but obviously in Germany, or the German city of Nuremberg. The speech goes on and on and on just to pad the, "Miss V from Moscow", movie to make it over it's over 60 minute length in order to qualify it as a "B" or second, or third, rate feature film . At the end of the film we see Miss V and Steve dressed up as Russian peasants laughing and living it up in the USSR on the back of a hey filled horse drawn cart. I think that they were laughing at us, not the Nazis, for putting up with and taking seriously both them and the movie.