Gulag (1985) (TV)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Roger Young

Writers:

Yehousha Ben-Porat (story)
Dan Gordon (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 January 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

They gambled their lives to escape a frozen hell [Australia Theatrical]

Plot:

Mickey Almon is a sports star turned reporter covering the athletics in Moscow. Framed by the KGB and forced to confess that he was spying for America...

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Escape | Spy

Cast

David Keith	...	Mickey Almon
Malcolm McDowell	...	The Englishman
Warren Clarke	...	Hooker
John McEnery	...	Diczek
Nancy Paul	...	Susan Almon
Brian Pettifer	...	Vlasov
George Pravda	...	Bukovsky
Shane Rimmer	...	Jay
Bruce Boa	...	McHenry
Eugene Lipinski	...	Yuri
Ray Jewers	...	T.V. Interviewer
Bogdan Kominowski	...	Stolypin Guard
Barrie Houghton	...	Wisinski
Alexei Jawdokimov	...	Vikstrom
Ivan Lee	...	Chinaman

Runtime:

130 min | USA:119 min (VHS version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:10 | Australia:M | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:12 | Finland:K-16 (video) (1988) | Finland:(Banned) (theatrical release) (1985)

Filming Locations:

England, UK

Company:

Home Box Office (HBO)

Trivia:

In one scene, David Keith wears an orange-and-white University of Tennessee jacket. Keith is an alumnus of the university.

Quotes:

Bukovsky: So, are you ready to sign the papers today?
Mickey Almon: If you blow me.

Entertaining, but unconvincing film

This was a made for HBO movie about a star athlete in Moscow who is convinced by a Russian scientist to be a spy and is immediately arrested and sent to a labor camp in Siberia for 10 years, even though he did not commit the crime. The escape scene is exciting, but it seems to me he and his crew just couldn't have perfected that "false wall" in the train with lumber that was supplied to them to remove cement bags, and done it behind the guards backs. There's many other things, his incarceration in a cold cell for 3 months living on bread and water, yet still healthy, their trek off the train to the border in such short time, etc. One laughable scene is a gratuitous skin shot of the man's wife in the shower. Malcolm McDowell has a great part as a sarcastic English spy who knows how life in the camps works and how to survive. Strangely enough, he doesn't even reveal his name until the end.