Red Snow (1952)
IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 15 minutes, rated 6.6 by 58 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Spy Fy.
Verdict: 0.
The Cold War is very cold on the Alaska side of the Bering Strait where Wild Bill Hickok and a cast of extras watch another, smaller cast of extras on the other, Red side. That is the top and tail of this D movie. In between, cut and pasted from two other, earlier movies, is a trek by loyal American Inuits to safety, after the Bad Reds have poisoned their food. One of these earlier documentary movies, twenty years previously, featured the same Inuit actor who is in this 1952 patchwork film, one Ray Mala.
The result is broken-backed with the two stories barely joined by a thread. Still Hickok has that heartthrob smile, and the documentaries show another, white world. Scifist 2.0 has the details of the quilt work for those who must know.
The acting, well, what acting, because most of it is covered by narration – seldom a good sign but it saves a lot of money on sound engineering. The closest we get to acting is from two of the Russki pilots who seem to think they are in a movie and should play their parts, a consideration that did seem to trouble anyone else in the cast.
As usual, the comic relief is annoying, as well as superfluous. Probably played by the producer’s nephew.
Then there is that Kremlin flyby at the end to pad things out and out.
Bad Reds planting bombs reminded me that I have yet to endure the Z movie that is Battle Beneath the Earth, an Italian production, set in the USA with British actors. I have watched a few minutes of it on You Tube, because I cannot stand more than that in one sitting. One suspects the explanation of this instance of multinational cooperation lies in tax laws.