| Red Monarch | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jack Gold |
| Written by | Charles Wood |
| Produced by | David Puttnam |
| Starring | Colin Blakely David Suchet David Kelly Carroll Baker David Threlfall |
| Cinematography | Mike Fash |
| Distributed by | Film4 Productions |
Release date | 16 June 1983 (UK) |
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Red Monarch is a 1983 British television film, starring Colin Blakely as Joseph Stalin. It is directed by Jack Gold and features David Suchet as Lavrentiy Beria and David Threlfall as Stalin's son Vasily.[1]
Red Monarch is a comedy based on The Red Monarch: Scenes From the Life of Stalin, a collection of short critical essays by the Russian dissident and former KGB agent Yuri Krotkov. The film depicts Soviet politics and the interplay between Stalin and his lieutenants, particularly Beria, during the last years of Stalin's rule. The reading of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "The Heirs of Stalin"[2] in the final scene supposedly warns that the threat of totalitarianism is constantly present.
Goldcrest Films invested £553,000 in the film and earned £292,000 making them a loss of £261,000.[3]
