BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1946	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	84:52 minutes	Other Extras	Menu Audio and Animation Notes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Sergei Eisenstein
Studio Distributor	Force Video	Starring	Nikolai Cherkassov Serafima Birman Mikhail Zharov Mikhail Nazvanov Pavel Kadochnikov
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Sergei Prokofiev

    The story starts in 1560 with the return of Ivan to Moscow at the behest of the people, which happened to coincide with the surrender of the Russian Army by Prince Kurbsky, perhaps Ivan's closest friend, to the King of Poland. In the face of this treachery, Ivan started down the path of his reign of terror that earned him his nickname. This path was strengthened by the opposition of the Church to his decisions, which lead to a showdown in the cathedral in Moscow, where Ivan vowed to become what they called him - Ivan The Terrible. What follows is the usual tale of intrigue, politics, family dispute, plot, counterplot, execution and murder. Ivan faced increasing opposition from the boyars, lead by his aunt Efrosinia Staritskaya, and became the subject of assassination attempts, most notably involving the appointed assassin of the boyars in Pyotr Volynets. Unfortunately, Ivan was a little more intelligent than the boyars gave him credit for, with the result that he tricks his cousin Vladimir Staritsky (whilst in a drunken stupor) to pretend to be the Tsar and lead the royal procession into the cathedral for evening devotions, with rather dire consequences. In one foul swoop, Ivan had eliminated the main thrust of the boyar plot to overthrow him.

    Another poor synopsis of Russian history of the period, but it is an interesting comparison with the events of the 1940s and 1950s which were very similar: hence the reason that Stalin had the film instantly banned. There is no doubt that this is not a sequel to Ivan Groznyj I but rather a continuation of that film. As a result there is an amazing consistency between the two films, although the story here is a little less coherent than that of the first film. The standard of acting is naturally very much the same and Nikolai Cherkassov in the lead is still the power behind the film.

    Whilst this is generally not considered quite the equal of Ivan Groznyj I, this is nonetheless another powerful effort from the master of Russian film. It is a great shame that his life was cut relatively short and that he never got to complete Part 3 of the trilogy.

Video

    The transfer is presented in a full frame format.

    The transfer suffers from a wide degree of inconsistency in the visual aspect of the transfer. Occasionally sharp and well detailed, at other times it became quite soft and a little murky in detail. Detail at times is poor, which does little to help the film, but overall is quite decent and occasionally ascends to better than respectable. Overall it is hard to suggest that the film has any degree of clarity to it. Shadow detail is not especially wonderful at any point of the film, but this is rather in keeping with the age and origin of the film. There does not appear to be any low level noise problems with the transfer. It should be pointed out that there are a couple of quite noticeable lapses in focus during the film.

    Whilst the film does occasionally demonstrate a depth to the blacks and a nice clarity to the whites, it is unfortunate that there is no consistency in this regard. Some scenes show a distinct lack of any depth to the blacks in particular and really capture the murky greys that really ruin black and white films. In general this film suffers somewhat more poorly in this regard than the first film.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be many significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, apart from one rather noticeable green flash at 47:39 which really disrupts the viewing experience. The problem in this transfer is the film artefacts and this is certainly a problematic transfer in this regard. Apart from the expected dirt and scratches, there were some rather noticeable blotches on the print which really are more reminiscent of a film far older: this is definitely an indicator that the original print suffered badly from poor storage, albeit slightly better than the first film. The film also suffers a little from the odd jump and odd continuity problem. Overall, the artefacts were a little disruptive to the enjoyment of the film.

    Somewhat unusually I felt, the brief opening credits were in English, although most of the credits were by way of a voice-over detailing the main cast members. The closing credits were in English. Once again the English subtitles are not selectable, but rather are burned into the picture. Compounding this however is the fact that the subtitles are again in white lettering which is extremely difficult at times to read against the light background of the film. In this regard however, the font of the subtitles changes at around the 58:00 mark, and thereafter they are a little easier to read. The subtitles are again anything but complete and only give a broad picture of what is actually being spoken in the film.

Audio

    There is just the one audio track on the DVD, a Russian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack. You should note that the track is flagged as an English track but it is definitely Russian. I would not be surprised to discover that this is the very original sound recording for the film, as it is again a quite muffled effort. This really is another poor example of a mono soundtrack and if I thought that little restoration work had been done on the video, then I can practically guarantee you that none has been done on the audio. It is a very constricted sounding effort and suffers noticeably from mild distortion virtually throughout. At times, it was very difficult to listen to the dialogue (making the problems with the subtitles even worse). About the only thing positive here is that there did not seem to be any significant problems with audio sync.

    Like Ivan Groznyj I, the music score comes from Sergei Prokofiev, and the same comments apply here as with that earlier film. This really deserved far better sound.

    Once again the sound is so bad that it is again like listening to a 1960s television show with your speakers covered by plastic bags. The vocal track is very recessed in the mix and extremely frontal, so that there is no doubt that this is coming at you straight from the centre speaker with nothing from any other channel. Toss in the mild distortion and you really have something pretty woeful indeed. Purists would probably be well satisfied with this, arguing that the context of the sound has been retained. Whilst I am not asking for nor expecting a full 5.1 digital remastering, I would have thought that a cleaning up of this constricted effort would not have been asking too much. Without doubt the equal worst example of sound that I have yet heard on a DVD.

Menu

Notes

    A poorish video transfer.

    An appalling audio transfer.

    An uninspiring extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
15th May 2000