1973 film
Night Flight from Moscow (also known as The Serpent)[1][2] (French: Le Serpent) is a 1973 French-Italian-West German Cold War spy-thriller film that was produced, cowritten and directed by Henri Verneuil and starred Yul Brynner, Henry Fonda, Dirk Bogarde and Philippe Noiret. The score was composed by Ennio Morricone.
Plot
Aleksey Teodorovic Vlassov, a high-ranking KGB official who defects while he is in France, possesses highly classified information as part of a deal with Western intelligence for his arrival in the United States. The debriefing is held at Langley by DCI Allan Davies and MI6 representative Philip Boyle. Vlassov hands a list that he has of enemy agents in Western Europe, including a deep penetration into NATO.
Davies wants to begin operations to arrest the agents, but those on the list suddenly begin to die off. The CIA also has suspicions over the authenticity of Vlassov's claims. The CIA discovers that a defection photo of Vlassov had been taken in the Soviet Union, not in Turkey, because of the contours of Mount Ararat in the background. Vlassov outsmarted a lie detector test of the CIA by telling a minor lie to cover his real intentions.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews. Time Out called it "a very traditional spy fable" and stated, "The only thing that sets this film apart is the totally consistent layer of impenetrable gloss with which Verneuil covers it, and his general directorial tricksiness, which runs the gamut from the irrelevant to the pretentious and back."[1] TV Guide described it as "a solid international espionage tale", and added, "This is a gritty, tightly directed look at international intrigue, and the performances are all finely tuned. Particularly effective is Bogarde who offers a insightful portrait of a cool, calculating agent."[2]
A contemporary review by Tony Mastroianni in the Cleveland Press stated that the film demonstrated how in 1973, the computer had replaced the dagger in espionage. The reviewer also concluded the film had "more good moments than bad".[3]
