Themes: Escape From Prison, Behind the Iron Curtain
Main Cast: David Keith, Malcolm McDowell, David Suchet
Release Year: 1985
Country: UK
Run Time: 130 minutes
Plot
In this made-for-TV thriller, a sportscaster engineers a daring escape from a Soviet prison camp after being snared by a KGB scheme. Mickey Almon (David Keith), a sports star-turned-journalist, arrives in Moscow to cover an international tournament. Soon, though, he's tempted to play the hero once again, this time not as an athlete, but as a smuggler of repressed scientific research. Against the advice of his wife (Nancy Paul), Mickey agrees to help the Russians who've approached him, but the entire intrigue turns out to be a set-up. Physically neglected and emotionally tortured in a stinking hole for several weeks, Mickey agrees to sign a confession after being told that it will guarantee his release. Instead, he receives a ten-year sentence and soon finds himself on a train bound for Siberia. Sewing rough-hewn gloves with the other foreign prisoners and living for the day each month when his care package arrives, Mickey soon resolves to escape or die trying. To that end, he enlists a cynical British spy (Malcolm McDowell) and a group of Soviet prisoners in a plan to escape via a supply train that can get them within reach of the West -- if only they can find a way to get onto it undetected. Gulag was directed by Roger Young, who previously helmed such lauded TV movies as Bitter Harvest and would go on to direct the original televised version of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
A lightweight but well-produced entry in the venerable foreign-prisons-are-hell genre, this TV movie boasts a strong supporting performance from Malcolm McDowell, but suffers from a queasily patriotic streak. Handsome, boy-scoutish David Keith is perfectly cast as Mickey Almon, a golden boy athlete whose need to play the big shot ends him up in a Soviet prison camp. Although Dan Gordon's script has plenty of fun disabusing Mickey of the notion that he's got all sorts of inalienable rights as an American abroad, the film ultimately comes off as a piece of Cold War propaganda. Nevertheless, director Roger Young displays a sure hand with the scenes of prison brutality, revenge, and camaraderie. The sequences depicting a furious wager over who can produce the most slipshod Soviet mittens in an hour proves just as gripping as the inevitable but well-staged escape-attempt scenes. The plot allows the filmmakers to work in all sorts of details about the differing conditions faced by domestic dissidents and foreign enemies in the Soviet prison system. And McDowell, as a foreign-intelligence bureaucrat who gets snagged during a midlife-crisis stab at being a field agent, oozes bitterness and unexpected humanity with flair. If the film ultimately pales in comparison to such stylish and/or epic efforts as Bridge on the River Kwai, Papillon, and Midnight Express, it's still got enough of its own personality to stand proud. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
David Sutton - Boom Operator, Jean Bourne - Continuity, Roger Young - Director, John Jympson - Editor, Peter Carter - Location Manager, Peter Bennett - Location Manager, Elmer Bernstein - Composer (Music Score), David Franco - Musical Direction/Supervision, Harald Taalgaard - Camera Operator, Keith Wilson - Production Designer, Chic Anstiss - Cinematographer, Kelvin Pike - Cinematographer, Terry Glass - Special Effects, Paul LeMare - Sound Mixer, Teddy Mason - Sound Editor, Paul Weston - Stunts, Graeme Crowther - Stunts, Dave Beavis - Special Effects Supervisor, Dan Gordon - Screenwriter, Liv Sandvik - Production Assistant, Robbie Risk - Sound Effects Editor, Doreen Landry - Unit Publicist, John Harman - Gaffer, Malcolm Smith - Grip, Michael Clifford - Music Editor, Jennie Raglan - Production Coordinator, Jarle Blesvik - Properties Master, Gerry Bourke - Properties Master, Terry Madden - Second Assistant Director, Laurie Ridley - Still Photographer, Dennis Bosher - Assistant Art Director, Karen Lansdown - Assistant Costumer Designer, Graham Farrow - Assistant Sound Editor, Peter Palmer - Buyer, Sharon Howard-Field - Casting Assistant, Emil Stang Lund - Casting Assistant, Ray Usher-Cooper - Costumes Assistant, Stephen Cornish - Costumes Supervisor, Dan Young - Extra Casting, Jo Hannam - First Assistant Accountant, Willie Webb - First Assistant Editor, Michael Larkins - Production Accountant, Edward O. Denault - Production Executive, Stefan Smal - Second Assistant Editor, Jamie Harcourt - Focus Puller, Ole Bjorn Salvesen - Production Secretary, Gay Whelan - Production Secretary, Simon Haveland - Third Assistant Director, Kristian Helan - Third Assistant Director, Ola Walberg - Third Assistant Director, Joe Seaton - Assistant Sound Effects Editor, Sten Johanson - Armorer
TV reporter and former star athlete Mickey Almon is covering a World athletic event in Moscow when he is arrested by the KGB after being approached by a scientist wanting him to smuggle secret information out of the Soviet Union. Almon is imprisoned and interrogated over several days time by prison official Bukovsky who ultimately forces him to confess himself as a spy for the United States. Though promised with release for doing so, Almon is instead transported to a railway station and placed aboard a train on a Stolypin prison car with other political prisoners bound for a labor camp near the Arctic Circle.
After arriving, Almon meets a fellow foreign prisoner, the sarcastic Englishman who teaches him how to survive the brutal life of the camp. In time, after learning that his ultimate fate in the camp will eventually be death through hazardous labor, Almon and the Englishman conspire together to plot an escape to Norway.
