Stalin (1992) on Netflix
TV-MA19922h 52mBiographyCrimeDrama
After Siberian exile, Josef Stalin awaits Vladimir Lenin's return as the revolution brings the Bolsheviks to power. Nadezhda Alliluyeva becomes secretary to the new Bolshevik leaders.
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- Netflix2.7/5
- IMDb7.0/103,068 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Svetlana Alliluyeva looks back on the life of her father, Josef Stalin. He comes home from exile in Siberia, is turned down when he tries to enlist for the First World War, and keeps up his fight against the tsar. In 1917 he stands on a station platform with his comrades, waiting for Vladimir Lenin to arrive. The October Revolution puts a new Bolshevik government in charge of Russia, and the young Nadezhda Alliluyeva is taken on as a secretary for its leaders. She admires what Stalin did during the revolution and becomes his wife. Stalin proves ruthless, ordering the killing of several officers, which draws a complaint from Leon Trotsky to Lenin; Lenin stands by Stalin and his methods. The two men contend over Lenin's legacy.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Stalin (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Thanks to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, producer Mark Carliner got permission to film inside the Kremlin, making Stalin the first feature film ever allowed to shoot there.
- While scouting locations on the eve of the August 1991 coup, director Ivan Passer and producer Mark Carliner found their Moscow hotel was the coup plotters' headquarters; with troops around the Kremlin they fled to Hungary, where Carliner thought two years of work getting filming permits had gone up in smoke.
- For Stalin's victory speech in the Kremlin, 500 extras arrived more than eight hours late, stuck ten kilometers away in make-up, and then ignored the director's instructions and ate the whole buffet before shooting could begin.
- The final scene was shot at Stalin's dacha on December 21, 1991, four hours after the Soviet Union had dissolved with the signing of the Alma-Ata Protocol.
- Al Pacino was among the actors who showed interest in playing Stalin before the part went to Robert Duvall, who three months earlier had turned down the same role in Andrei Konchalovsky's The Inner Circle, reportedly over salary.
- Make-up artist and Oscar winner Stephan Dupuis turned Robert Duvall's soft blue eyes, bald head and small nose into Stalin's coarse face by studying photos of both men, taking an impression of Duvall's face at his ranch and building a clay mask at home.
- To test how their make-up looked, Maximilian Schell and Robert Duvall went out among the people in character as Lenin and Stalin; Schell was often ignored while Duvall met rejection and contempt.
