La diagonale du fou (1984)

Director:

Richard Dembo

Writer:

Richard Dembo (writer)

Release Date:

24 May 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot Keywords:

10 Year Old | Cigarette Smoking | Reference To Goethe | Soviet Union | Pair Of Gloves

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 3 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Michel Piccoli	...	Akiva Liebskind
Alexandre Arbatt	...	Pavius Fromm
Liv Ullmann	...	Marina Fromm
Leslie Caron	...	Henia Liebskind
Wojciech Pszoniak	...	Le grand maître Felton - l'équipe de Fromm
Jean-Hugues Anglade	...	Miller, l'équipe de Fromm
Daniel Olbrychski	...	Tac-Tac, l'équipe de Liebskind
Hubert Saint-Macary	...	Foldes
Michel Aumont	...	Stepan Ivanovitch Kerossian - l'équipe de Liebskind
Pierre Michaël	...	Yachvili
Serge Avedikian	...	Fadenko
Pierre Vial	...	Anton Heller
Bernhard Wicki	...	Pühl
Jacques Boudet	...	Stuffli
Benoît Régent	...	Barabal

Also Known As:

Dangerous Moves (USA)

Runtime:

France:110 min | Switzerland:95 min | USA:100 min | Argentina:102 min

Country:

France | Switzerland

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | UK:15

Company:

Arthur Cohn Productions

Trivia:

In the final game, Pavius and Akiva play the French Defence / Paulsen Attack. The moves are as follows: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. Be2 cxd4 7. cxd4 Nh6 8. Nc3 Nf5 9. Na4 Bb4+ 10. Bd2 Qa5 11. Bc3 b5 12. a3 Bxc3+ 13. Nxc3 b4 14. axb4 Qxb4 The film ends here; at this point, it is much too early in the game to determine who will win.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Early in the film, Liebskind describes a move as "Rook to G-10". There is no G-10 on the chessboard; the numbers only go to 8. This error is in the subtitles only and was a mistranslation; the actual line ends with "huit", French for eight.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007) (TV)

The Cold War in a chess game

Disputing the world title of chess, sit down in chairs opposite two soviets. However, none of the two is Russian: one of them, the champion, is Jewish. The other, the challenger, is a Lithuanian, political exile that is refugee in another country. This game will be a mirror of the Cold War: each movement is dangerous, each play is strategically important. Who is the best? The communist Jew, obedient to the Soviet state, or the Lithuanian traitor, enemy of the proletarian revolution? A beautiful end, where the game in itself has, for both, a larger importance than the world title and they consequences. A good film, with reasonable tension, great representative of the rare Swiss movies.