Ivan The Terrible Collection

Number of Movies: 2

Overview

A two-part historical epic film about Ivan IV of Russia made by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Part 1 was released in 1944 but Part 2 was not released until 1958 due to political censorship. The films were originally planned as part of a trilogy, but Eisenstein died before filming of the third part could be finished.

Featured Cast

Nikolai Cherkasov

Czar Ivan IV

Serafima Birman

Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya

Pavel Kadochnikov

Vladimir Andreyevich Staritsky

Mikhail Zharov

Czar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov

Amvrosi Buchma

Czar's Guard Aleksei Basmanov

Vsevolod Pudovkin

Nikolay the Fanatic

Mikhail Kuznetsov

Fyodor Basmanov

Alexander Mgebrov

Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen

Andrei Abrikosov

Archbishop Philip (formerly Fyodor Kolychev)

Vladimir Balashov

Pyotr Volynets

Eric Pyryev

Ivan IV as a boy

Mikhail Nazvanov

Prince Andrei Kurbsky

2 Movies

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

November 11, 1944

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.

This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.

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