Three notebooks supposedly containing Russian military secrets are handed to a British publisher during a Russian book conference. The British secret service are naturally keen to learn if these notebooks are the genuine article. To this end, they enlist the help of the scruffy British publisher Barley Blair, who has plenty of experience with Russia and Russians. Barley, an unconventional character who doesn't respond well to authority, finds himself in a game more complex than he first thought when he digs into the origin of the notebooks. Written by
Plot Synopsis:
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A Soviet physicist, played by Brandauer, weary of the damage the Cold War was doing to his country and the world, wants to secretly broadcast to the West the greatly weakened state of the Soviet Union during the 1980s - his message to a British publisher (Connery) sent via Pfeiffer, is intercepted by British intelligence, who then attempt to use (in conjunction with the CIA) the publisher to contact the Soviet physicist for their own agenda. Inevitably the Soviets catch on and the physicist is tortured to death, the publisher ends up betraying both sides (East and West) in order to uphold higher values - love of one's fellow man (and woman...)
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housejk from United States
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The Russia House is an amazing movie. It captures the majesty of Russia in visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg (Leningrad) as well as the crumbling Soviet state. The first western movie filmed in the Soviet Union, The Russia House is better defined as a love story than as a spy thriller. Do not be concerned however, spy fans. There is plenty of intrigue to be had in this beautiful movie. The interplay between Sean Connery, Roy Scheider and J.T. Walsh in a scene from Vancouver, British Columbia alone is worth the price of admission. However, the true star of this understated romance is James Fox, who plays the British contact for Connery's Scott Blair and the foil for the CIA's Scheider character in such gentlemanly fashion as to make the audience believe the true Bond-style gentleman-spy really does exist in this world. From the beautiful scenery to perhaps the best and most haunting soundtrack of any movie--ever (reviews abound--just look them up, friends--easily the great Jerry Goldsmith's finest work), the Russia House is a truly mysterious and romantic movie.
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EnriqueH from Miami, Fl.
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Admittedly, The Russia House may not be for all tastes, but I saw this when I was 15 when it came out in the theaters and I loved it then and I love it now.
If you go in expecting this to be a James Bond/Simon Templar/North By Northwest type movie, you'll be GRAVELY disappointed. Needless to say, the movie is dialogue driven and the performances are great. Sean Connery (my all-time favorite) gives a nice performance in a role that isn't typical Connery. Michelle Pfeiffer (my favorite actress) is equally excellent. I kept looking for her to flub her Russian accent, but she's on target from start to finish.
The supporting players: Roy Scheider, who I also love, is awesome. There's a lot of witty dialogue in this film, but Scheider has some of the film's most memorable ones. Ken Russell, the controversial director, has an equally memorable, witty role as "Walter". I own this movie, but between the time I saw it in the theaters and the time I bought it a year and half ago, Russell was one of the things about the movie that really stood out in my memory of the film. And of course, James Fox who's always great.
Not really a supporting player but it might as well be is the LOCATIONS. Wow, really breathtaking stuff. Fred Schepsi did a wondrous job with the locations, and the CAMERA. The cinematography and locations were first-rate. And if that wasn't enough, I was equally enthralled with the jazzy musical score. If it isn't already apparent, I love this movie, and I absolutely recommend it.
It has a nice blend of dialogue, plot, romance and humor. I reiterate: Not for all tastes given that many may find it slow, but definitely worth a look. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
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lavasanipour from San Diego, California
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My parents were born in and emigrated from the Ukraine. They have firsthand knowledge of the way the Soviet government operated. The details in the movie are very true to life under the Soviet regime. The plot is complex but life is also complex; especially under a repressive regime. I found the movie riveting; the plot keeps you guessing until the end. It is beautifully filmed on location. The actors are all excellent and very well cast. In addition, the music is wonderful; not only as a movie score but on its own, as well. Although some may find the plot difficult to follow (you do have to pay attention), it is well worth the viewing. After all, spying is a complex business.
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steviekeys from NYC, United States
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My first comment for this site....exciting stuff.
Prompted to write this by seeing this again on video - the third time for me, and it's rare that I want to see anything three times. And I realized that it's fascination still holds....this is one of my top 10, definitely.
The reasons I would rate this a "9", while somebody else would give it a "5.9" are largely personal....i think it always comes down to the personal. Talk all we want, when we watch a movie - as when we eat a meal, or kiss someone - the pleasure center in the brain either lights up or doesn't. For me it's all about the love of a place...for Scott Barley Blair it's early Glastnost Russia, for me it's 90's Germany - Hamburg, Berlin...the strangeness, the trueness of people who surround you in such a place and your love for them because of this. The fact that a film can light up specific sense memories like these means that it is true - at least in that respect. This is a remarkably honest film - terrifically unsensational for a spy film and one of the rare "love stories" that delivers the satisfactions expected of a "love story" without getting mawkish. Everything rings true here except for the ending (a fabricated "happy ending" which is the only thing that kept me from rating this a 10).
To ask for Manchurian Candidate type excitement from this low key film is wrong. The suspense, which is remarkably sustained (those rich long tracking shots of people walking through public places to uncertain destinations to meet with, or maybe not meet with shadow characters who may be allies or enemies) is the truer suspense of the uncertainty of living in a gray, gray world...where nothing much happens, but peril is part of the fabric of mundane life.
(Those sequences are gorgeous....the colors of autumn in a Leningrad park, the closeups of the stone gargoyles....the moody circular stepping pace of the soundtrack....Branford Marsalis' saxophone.) Someone has said here that it is talky. Yes, it is talky...but the talk is brilliant...it is the perfect reflection of a world where everyone - book publishers and bureaucrats and spies alike speaks in mannered, ritualized streams of code. This is not disinformation - it is perfectly understood by all, a language that has supplanted the language of an earlier age in which sincerity was an option.
Besides that ending, the piece is perfectly faithful to LeCarre's novel. LeCarre's books have had good luck when being translated into movies. Of the eight or so that have been adapted, four have made great films: The Spy Who Came into the Cold, The Russia House, and the two George Smiley BBC miniseries. LeCarre is a great writer and more specifically great at plotting and dialogue, and these films all succeed pretty much by filming what is written unadorned and pouring on the atmosphere. And they are blessed with lead performances by three great actors at the top of the form - Richard Burton, Sean Connery and Alec Guiness (Guiness especially...to watch him for six hours in Smiley's People is one of the great pleasures).
A beautifully efficient and elegant translation by Tom Stoppard of a great novel, wonderfully dignified and touching performances by Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer (never seen her better), a beautiful soundtrack by a second tier composer graced by the presence of a real jazz master, a terrific evocation of a place and time....a very moving film.
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cinegnostic from Portland, Oregon, USA
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This is a movie that will overwhelm you, if you let it. If you are interested in nonstop action, look somewhere else. If you are looking for a nice, linear story line, look somewhere else. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a complex story set at the sunset of Soviet Russia, with an incomparable musical score and believable characters you can accept as the real thing, rent or buy this movie. Sean Connery does a wonderful job as a worldly and inebrieated man confronting true love, and all it ramifications, for once in his life. Michelle Pfeiffer is a beautiful, but tired, mother of two who doesn't have the time for love without meaning. Behind the scenes, the interplay between American and British intelligence is priceless. Lastly, the score is wonderful. If you can't bring yourself to watch the film, at least buy the CD of the soundtrack. This is top shelf stuff. You will not be disappointed.
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Lupercali from Tasmania
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The Russia House is a superior spy romance movie which falls short of being great. Additionally a couple of factors have been unkind to it over time.
Connery and Pfeiffer are excellant; the large cast are almost uniformly outstanding (except perhaps Roy Scheider, who I usually like, but who seems a bit over the top in his role here); the Moscow scenery and end of the Cold War feel are great, and the main characters are easy to like, if difficult to outright love. On the down side the writing assumes too much in expecting the audience to stay on top of the espionage jargon and intrigue, added to the non-linear plot. Let your attention wander and you'll lose your way. If it had been a little easier to follow, it would have left more room for dramatic tension, which was adequate but seldom riveting.
When I said that time has been unkind to The Russia House, I meant two things: firstly that the unfortunate timing of the movie's release, a year before the collapse of the Soviet Union, ensured that it would be dated almost immediately. More significantly, a growing portion of the film's potential audience didn't live through the late Soviet Era, and the nuances of concepts like Glasnost, and why Perestroika makes it hard for Pfeiffer to do her shoe-shopping aren't going to mean a thing to anyone much under 30.
But that's not the movie's fault. Russia House is still a quality, enjoyable drama with a great cast, even if it's somewhat ponderous and slow-moving, and complex. And oh yes - it has James Fox. A film like this without James Fox would have been like a table with three legs.
7 out of 10
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Troopie from Hua Hin, Thailand
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As a great admirer of John Le Carre, I watched this film with high expectations & although the story wasn't the usual Le Carre (such as 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'), I enjoyed it immensely. It is a combination of a good old-fashioned romance & a look at what happens when an ordinary man is brought into the world of espionage. Connery is very good as the boozy, world-weary publisher who considers personal relationships more important than Cold War one-upmanship. Michelle Pfeiffer, apart from being very pleasing to the eye as usual, was also pretty believable as the Russian trying to do the right thing. What's more, Klaus Maria Brandauer deserves an honourable mention as well. OK, the plot is complicated & sometimes hard to follow, as are most of Le Carre's works (& also, doubtless, the real world of espionage), but it is worth the effort. If you are seeking a simple good guy beats bad guy film, then don't watch this or any other realistic spy film. If, however, you want a story that manages to combine cynicism & romance, I recommend this one.
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hbs from United States
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Maybe I was just in the right mood, but I found this an effective romance. Michelle Pfieffer was even better than her usual terrific self, and the rest of the excellent cast was, well, excellent. It is pretty slow, but I think that this is essential to the conclusion, which I found quite moving. You have to give this movie a chance to grow on you, but if you are patient it is quite accessible. Not bleak at all, as you'd expect from Le Carre.
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gbheron from Washington, DC
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Interesting adaptation of John Le Carre's spy novel. As with Mr. Le Carre's writing the movie is slow and deliberately paced, letting the plot slowly sink in, and not explode in your face. The casting is dead-on with a frumpy Connery playing a middle-aged British book publisher whose love of Russia draws him in to a very high-stakes espionage caper at the end of the Cold War. Michelle Pfeiffer is also well cast as Katya, his Russian counterpart, i.e., a non-professional also drawn into the spy game. The movie does have a problem in moving the plot along through the all-to-frequent scenes of guys sitting around talking about espionage stuff. But if you like this kind of slow-paced, heavily romantic, thinking man's thriller then give this movie a try.
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christopher suleske (ruminant) from richmond, virginia
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i wish to opine merely on the film-scoring aspects of this feature. Jerry Goldsmith wrote a compelling and sexy set of themes which are used to great effect in this film. it surprised me, having watched the movie for probably the 5th time the other night, how integrated and present the music is. now, to a large degree this is normal with a modern hollywood feature. but i found that objectively viewing the film from outside the story itself, the music carries a greater weight than in most films of its genre. this is perhaps the choice of the director or the producers, but in either case, Goldsmith (and Marsalis in performace) does a wonderful job of lifting an otherwise lethargic script (as do Connery's and Pfeiffer's performances). the film itself could have been 20% better, but it would most certainly have come at the expense of the musical score and soundtrack, which really shine in this rendering.
This movie was the first major film production from the West to be filmed substantially in the Soviet Union with full permission from the Russian Government. This movie was filmed on location in Russia in both Moscow and St. Petersburg - filmed in the latter about five years before the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995). The final scenes were filmed in Lisbon, Portugal.
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The movie that Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Dante (Klaus Maria Brandauer) went to see in 1968 was Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle (1960).
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Michelle Pfeiffer held up filming in Moscow when the actress discovered a rule forbidding Western film companies from feeding the Soviet extras they hire, so she stomped off and refused to come back unless they were fed. To resolve the crisis, officials from the Soviet film commission had to be called in. Begging her to return to work, they explained that this was just the way things were done. In an interview with Esquire Magazine at the time of the film's release, Pfeiffer commented on the incident. "In a country where you can't get food, where you can't get soap, here they were watching us shoveling down these platefuls of hot, steamy spaghetti. I didn't sleep that night. It was very traumatic. Then I realized, You know, this is so typically American of you. This is what, as a country, we're accused of all the time. Now, whether I was right or wrong isn't the issue. The issue was, Do I have the right, as an outsider, to come in and force my sensibilities on this culture? At a certain point, I decided to leave my identity at the border. I thought to myself, Okay, you have no identity. And at that point I was able to experience the country as it was, on a purer level, and finally to even embrace it."
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The meaning and relevance of the title "The Russia House" is that it refers to the nickname given to the section of the British Secret Service that was assigned to investigating the Soviet Union.
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This movie was made and first released only about a year after its source novel of the same name by John le Carrè was first published in 1989.
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Production Company Pathe Entertainment Inc. refused to make the picture without Sean Connery.
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This movie went into development whilst its source novel of the same name by John le Carrè was still in manuscript form.
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During principal photography of this picture, the infamous symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, finally came down. John le Carrè , author of this film's source novel, worked for British Intelligence's Mi5 & Mi6 during the 1950s and 1960s and worked in Berlin. Le Carrè ' was in Berlin when the Berlin Wall was being constructed. Le Carrè drew on this real life experience when he wrote the novel of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' which is set about a year after the Berlin Wall was built.
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Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the role of the mistress in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) (which went to Melanie Griffith) to play the part of a Russian book editor in this film. Her role in this film as Katya Orlova earned her a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actress (Drama) but Pfeiffer lost to Kathy Bates for Misery (1990).
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Sean Connery had casting approval for the film as per his contract.
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The character name of Goethe in John le Carrè 's novel 'The Russia House' was changed to Dante (played by Klaus Maria Brandauer) for this film.
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This adaptation of John le Carrè 's novel 'The Russia House' was written by Tom Stoppard and stars Sean Connery. Connery had at the time recently been originally cast as The Player King in Tom Stoppard's film version of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) but Connery had had to withdraw due to a medical scare relating to throat cancer which turned out to be benign. The part went to Richard Dreyfuss but Connery got to work in a Stoppard production when he did this movie.
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The second American movie production to film in Russia. The first had been Red Heat (1988).
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This picture was filmed on two continents (Europe & North America), in four countries (Russia, England, Portugal & Canada) and in five cities (Moscow, Leningrad, London, Lisbon & Vancouver).
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Michelle Pfeiffer was the only non-Russian cast member who played a Russian. All the other Russian characters were played by people from the former Soviet Union.
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In the 1990 year that this film was released, this film's source novel author John le Carrè was awarded the Helmerich Award. The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award is an American Literary Prize bestowed by Oklahoma's Tulsa Library Trust. The award is given every year to an "internationally acclaimed" writer who has "written a distinguished body of work and made a major contribution to the field of literature and letters".
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A seven episode radio play of John le Carrè 's novel 'The Russia House' was produced and broadcast by the BBC in 1994 with 'Tom Baker' playing Barley Blair.
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'The Russia House' book is the twelfth novel written by John le Carrè .
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Mike Nichols was once attached as director to this film, a job that in the end went to Fred Schepisi. During Nichols' tenure, playwright Tom Stoppard was brought into do the screenplay.
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Starring in this movie, actors Sean Connery and Klaus Maria Brandauer previously worked together on another spy movie, the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983). Ironically, Connery had just recently replaced Brandauer in The Hunt for Red October (1990) when production in Bavaria on Seven Minutes [Georg Elser - Einer aus Deutschland (1989)], Brandauer's directing debut, got delayed.
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Second consecutive Russia-related movie for actor Sean Connery whose previous picture at the time had been The Hunt for Red October (1990).
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The name of the corporate business venture that Barley (Sean Connery) became a partner in was 'Potomac Blair'.
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Sean Connery is seen playing the saxophone in this picture. Connery also sports a goatee half beard.
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The actual full name of the Barley Blair character (played by Sean Connery) is Bartholomew Scott Blair.
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Second spy film featuring the word 'Russia' in the title for actor Sean Connery. The first was the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963) twenty-seven years earlier. Connery was the first actor to play Bond to appear in a filmed adaptation of a John le Carrè spy story. Pierce Brosnan was the second and last actor to do so, in The Tailor of Panama (2001).
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One of two 1990 cinema movies featuring actor Roy Scheider. The films are The Russia House (1990) and The Fourth War (1990). Both pictures were related to the Cold War.
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The actual full name of the Katya Orlova character (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) is Ekaterina Borisovna Orlova.
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For this film, director Fred Schepisi was nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.
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This movie filmed in Russia but it was not the first time that Sean Connery had filmed in the former Soviet Union as The Red Tent [Krasnaya palatka (1969)] in which he starred shot there. From Russia with Love (1963) in which Connery starred did not actually film in the USSR. A Red Sickle (synonymous with Russian iconography) is formed out of the letter 'R' in a number of the opening credits.
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The Russia House (1990), The Avengers (1998) and James Bond 007: From Russia with Love (2005) are the final spy credits of Sean Connery, the first ever iconic James Bond of the cinema.
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The film cast includes one Oscar winner: Sean Connery; and four Oscar nominees: Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Ken Russell.
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Ken Russell: The British film director as Walter, an unorthodox British agent.
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AKAs Titles:
Certifications:
Argentina:13 / Australia:M / Brazil:Livre / Finland:S / Germany:12 / Iceland:L / Netherlands:AL (DVD rating) / Netherlands:6 (re-rating) / Netherlands:16 (original rating) (1991) / Peru:14 / Portugal:M/12 / Singapore:PG / South Korea:12 / Sweden:Btl / UK:15 / USA:R (certificate #30629)
Movie Details:
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