Wordiezett So much average

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

norise Possibly people who were not here at the beginning of the Cold War have difficulty appreciating this film. The film deserves at least an 8 for its skillful grappling with the issues which were to consume us for over forty years. The direction and script are tightly spun and intelligent; two characteristics which many later Cold War film lack. The Russian general is perhaps more caricatured than real, but this flaw is more than compensated for with sterling performances by Ethyl Barrymore and Walter Pigeon. It's also a great Christmas movie with the beautiful subplot of the little girl working the black market to survive. I wish the script were a little less rough on Angela Lansberry's character, but she somehow was able to pull it off. A good show. Recommended to be seen with "The Third Man"

sol **SPOILERS** What struck me most about the film "The Red Danube" was the very strong religious implications in it. We have British Colonel Michael "Hooky" Nicobar, Walter Pidgeon, who's lost faith in an Almighty when his son who was preparing to study for the priesthood ended up getting shot down and killed over Germany in a bombing run. Being the good soldier that he is in following his superiors orders without question Col. Nicobar is later involved in deporting back to the USSR 21 year-old ballerina Maria Buhlen, Janet Leigh, without as much as a second thought! That despite Maria, who's real name is Olga Alexandrova, facing spending the rest of her life in a Soviet Gulag for leaving her country, the Soviet Union, without permission.It's only after exiled Soviet scientist Prof. Serge Bruloff, Konstatin Shayne, blew his brains out in order to prevent him from being repatriated back to his "Mother Land" that Col. Nicobar started having second thoughts about the good will of his Soviet allies in Vienna where he's stationed. As for the luckless Maria she did manage to escapes being sent back, via cattle car, to the USSR by getting herself hidden for a while in a Vienna church as a nun. It was later on the promise of Red Army Col. Piniev also known as "Pinhead" to his friends, Louis Calhern, that Maria would be treated as a national hero, by his boss Marshall Stalin, back in Moscow that Col. Nicobar agreed to turn her over to him. Maria, not being fooled at all by Col. "Piniev's promises, fully knows that she's instead slated to be be shot for being a traitor of the Soviet Union! Knowing what she's facing Maria jumps out a two story window and ends up killing herself!It's then that the Mother Superior, Ethel Barrymore of the church-the Order of the Daughters of the Holy Ghost that was hiding Maria during her exile in Vienna came to Col. Nicobar's rescue and showed him the way to redeem himself. This was by Col. Nicobar mistakingly, as if the Lord was secretly guiding him, taking a British General's, played by Alan Napier, star studded overcoat on his trip to Rome with the Mother Superior, in her being in the presence of a British General Officer, tagging along with him! It was that brazen act on Col. Nicobar part, that he in fact had absolutely no knowledge of, that turned things around not just for him but the United Nations who, in seeing what the Soviets were doing to their citizens in Vienna, rescinded the order to repatriate Russian citizens back to the Soviet Union! That's to prevent them from facing either curtain death or a life sentence in a Siberian Gulag.***SPOILERS*** What turned out to be the biggest surprise or miracle of all was that the now reborn, in seeing the light, and former agnostic Col. Nicobar who was facing dismissal from the army for him disobeying a direct order, in refusing to turn over Russian citizens back to their "Mother Land", and even a possible stretch behind bars in the stockade was given a promotion to Brigadier General! The now befuddled and promoted General Nicobar, in him not quite grasping what was going on all abound him, was then put in charge of seeing that all this, sending Soviet citizens back to Stalin's Russia, was kept from happening! P.S There's also in the movie British heartthrob actor, whom all the women in it were just nuts about, Peter Lawford as Col. Nicobar's good friend Maj. John "Twingo" MePhimister. "Twingo" both fell in love with the pretty Maria and tried unsuccessfully to keep her from being deported back to the Soviet Union which she, by killing herself, not him prevented from happening.

curtissann I found the film captivating. It addresses subjects such as faith and morality, and the conflict between being both a soldier and a human being. It gives no easy answers. It presents a piece of history rarely shown in film, and attempts to side-step making everything black and white. Yet The Red Danube is, foremost, good entertainment, a tale of love in the midst of war. Focusing on entertainment is necessary in the entertainment business, and the film does it well, with a few gratifying twists, too. Walter Pigeon and Ethel Barrymore are their grandest dignified selves. Sometimes its nice to be able to be reminded what that is. Interesting to note that Ethel Barrymore was seventy years old when making this film.

kjbeirne A solid film, which it is strange to see people calling controversial, since one would think that there would be little doubt any more about the nature of Soviet Communism, and the horrors perpetrated by Stalin. The cruelty of the allies turning over innocent expatriates to the Gulag and worse is rather convincingly portrayed. The moral dilemmas are decently examined, there are outbreaks of actual Christian faith and, of course there is a love story, because western audiences could hardly handle a movie without one. Barrymore is pungent, Leigh is beautiful, Lawford is sentimental, and Pigeon is as stiff as you could want a Brit to be. And Angela Lansbury makes a charming supportive appearance. Not a great movie, but a reasonably honest one which has nothing to do with McCarthyism and is definitely worth a viewing.