The Russia House [Blu-ray]

Director: Fred Schepisi Fred Schepisi

Overview

"Barley" Scott Blair (Sean Connery) is an alcoholic book editor from a bargain-basement publishing house in Great Britain who'd rather be drinking in Lisbon than attending a book dealers' show in Russia. So he's surprised when a CIA agent (Mac McDonald) pulls him from his boozy holiday. It seems that the CIA has through a book show intermediary received a package from a Russian book editor named Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) containing amazingly detailed notebooks written by a cynical Russian physicist named "Dante" (Klaus-Maria Brandauer). The notebooks show that Russia's nuclear threat is a joke: Russian rockets "suck instead of blow...and can't hit Nevada on a clear day," in the acerbic words of CIA Agent Russell Sheridan (Roy Scheider). But why is Dante sending the notebooks to Blair? How shall the Western world respond to what could be the end of the nuclear arms race? Blair gets drafted by a British Secret Service agent (James Fox) to go to the new Russia to meet Katya. He must see whether the new Russia is still immersed in the old Cold War and whether the notebooks are genuine or another deadly chapter in the war of the spies. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/21/2022
UPC:	0850035985786
Original Release:	1990
Rating:	R
Source:	Sandpiper Pictures
Language:	English
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	14,475

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Sean Connery	Barley Blair
Michelle Pfeiffer	Katja
Roy Scheider	Russell Sheriton
James Fox	Ned
John Mahoney	Brady
Michael Kitchen	Clive
J.T. Walsh	Quinn
Ken Russell	Walter
David Threlfall	Wicklow
Klaus Maria Brandauer	Dante
Nicholas Woodeson	Niki Landau
Martin Clunes	Brock
Ian McNeice	Merrydew
Colin Stinton	Henziger
Mac McDonald	Bob
Denys Hawthorne	Paddy
George Roth	Cy
Peter Mariner	US Scientist
Ellen Hurst	Anna
Peter Knupffer	Sergey
Nikolay Pastukhov	Uncle Matvey,Uncle Matvey
Jason Salkey	Johnny
Eric Anzumonyin	Nasayan
Daniel Wozniak	Zapadny
Georgi Andzhaparidze	Yuri
Vladek Nikiforov	Tout,Russian Guest
Christopher Lawford	Larry
Blu Mankuma	Merv
Tuck Milligan	Stanley
Jay Benedict	Spikey
David Timson	George
Elena Stroyeva (II)	Anastasia
Paul Jutkevich	Mischa
Margot Pinvidic	Woman Interpreter
David Henry	Junior Minister
Martin Wenner	Scientist
Paul Rattee	Army Officer
Simon Templeman	Psychoanalyst
Kate Lock	Jacky
Charlotte Cornwell	Charlotte
Craig Crosbie	Technician
Gennady Venov	Katya's Father
Sasha Yatsko	Russian Writer
Vladimir Zunetov	Dan
Jack Raymond	Lev
David Ryall	Colonial Type
Alexei Jawdokimov	Arkady
Constantin Gregory	KGB Interviewer,KGB Interviewer
Sergey Reusenko	KGB Man
Yegueshe Tsturvan	Flute Player
Fedor Smirnov	Watcher
Pavel Sirotin	Watcher
Raisa Ryazanova	Russian Guest
Keith Edwards	Hoover
Michael Fitzpatrick	Hoover
Bob Freeman	Actor,Hoover
Vladimir Sidirov	Leningrad Police Officer
Nikolai Nikitin	Leningrad Police Officer
Peter Marinker	U.S. Scientist
Mark La Mura	Todd
Jerry Goldsmith	Composer

Technical Credits

Tom Stoppard

John le Carré

Fred Schepisi	Director,Producer
Tom Stoppard	Screenwriter
Alan Ladd Jr.	Executive Producer
Paul Maslansky	Producer
Peter Fenton	Sound Effects
Phil Heywood	Sound Effects
John le Carré	Screenwriter
Mary Selway	Casting

Editorial Reviews

Based on the novel by master British spy novelist John Le Carre, The Russia House is as classy, smooth, and elegant as the jazz score Jerry Goldsmith wrote for it, which features the saxophone strains of Branford Marsalis. Director Fred Schepisi shot the film in several Russian cities which gives it a sumptuous palate and corresponds with the lush ironies and scope of Tom Stoppard's script. Schepisi and Stoppard draw parallels in the film between sex and spying, making you wonder exactly who is doing it to whom, but they do it with none of the vulgar humor John Boorman later used to good but obvious effect in The Tailor of Panama. If anything, The Russia House is supposed to be a love story, but there's a certain distance between Connery and Pfeiffer that makes the romance the film's least convincing aspect. The better scenes concern the spying, with Fox and Scheider displaying better chemistry than Connery and Pfeiffer. Fox gives his role an understated dignity and idealistic grace that contrasts nicely with Scheider's bluntness and ersatz vulgarity. The film also features strong supporting work from John Mahoney, the late J.T. Walsh, the director Ken Russell, and Klaus-Maria Brandauer as the Russian scientist named Dante. In two sharp scenes, Brandauer effectively conveys the world-weariness and almost desperate need for redemption that would force a man to commit treason to escape from a moral hell that would rival that of his namesake. Like Presumed Innocent, which was also released in 1990, The Russia House is the work of a great director, writer, and cast turning a fine novel into a very good and serious film.

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