I read that Russian director Sergei M. Eisenstein had intended to make a three part series, but he only managed to make the first two films, dying of a heart attack before he could complete it. I had to see if it was indeed the masterpiece it is claimed to be, especially as both parts appeared in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I'm not sure if the story was picking up where it left off, but basically Tsar Ivan IV (Nikolai Cherkasov) of Russia in the 16th Century, suffered the death of his wife Anastasia from poisoning, and his chief warrior Prince Andrei Kurbsky (Mikhail Nazvanov) defected to the Poles, and he makes a friend with Fyodor Kolychev (Andrei Abrikosov) who becomes Archbishop Philip the monk for Moscow. However Philip gets his decisions from the Boyars and tries to get Ivan to follow the church, but the Tsar in fact gets his private force the Oprichniks to find the Boyars. Led by Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya (Serafima Birman), Ivan's aunt, are planning to assassinate him in order to get her son Vladimir Andreyevich (Pavel Kadochnikov) on the throne. The Tsar does mock Vladimir with a crowning at a banquet and sends him in the robes to the cathedral where the assassin waits, and he does go out to do the murder, only to see the wrong man killed, and in the end Ivan kills the guilty people. Okay, I will be honest, I didn't catch on to all of this myself, it was hard to follow, and not just because I was trying to read the subtitles as well. Also starring Mikhail Zharov as Tsar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov and Aleksandr Mgebrov as Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen. What I understood of the story was good, the costume design is fantastic, the iconic imagery, such as the two scenes going into colour, is effective, it works without relying on moving camera-work (i.e. no pans or zooms), and there are certainly some poignant scenes, it may have be hard to read the subtitles due to scratchiness, but it is a historical drama to see. Very good!
