ABSTRACT
At the moment I’m writing this article, barely two weeks after the release of Ivan the Terrible at the Normandie Theater, the fate of this superproduction already seems decided. Most of the critics were extreme ly restrained. The public itself has not been restrained: at best, it cannot hide its disappointment and its surprise, and at worst, it sometimes laughs out loud. The film cognoscenti gloat scornfully and keep repeating that it would have been preferable for Russian prestige had the film not been released in France. I persist in believing, however, that Ivan the Terrible is a beautiful work that does the director of The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and The General Line (1929) proud.
