The Assassination of Trotsky

The Assassination of Trotsky
Directed by	Joseph Losey
Produced by	Norman Priggen Josef Shaftel (executive producer)
Written by	Nicholas Mosley
Starring	Richard Burton Alain Delon Romy Schneider Valentina Cortese Jean Desailly
Music by	Egisto Macchi
Cinematography	Pasqualino De Santis
Edited by	Reginald Beck
Production company	Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica Compagnia Internazionale Alessandra Cinematografica Cinétel
Distributed by	Cinerama Releasing Corporation
Release date	20 April 1972
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$2,500,000
Box office	561,109 admissions (France)

The Assassination of Trotsky is a 1972 British film directed by Joseph Losey with a screenplay by Nicholas Mosley. It starred Richard Burton as Leon Trotsky, as well as Romy Schneider and Alain Delon. A few years after release, The Assassination of Trotsky was included as one of the choices in the book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.

Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, Leon Trotsky travels from Turkey to France to Norway, before arriving in Mexico in January 1937. The film begins in Mexico City in 1940, during a May Day celebration. Trotsky has not escaped the attention of the Soviet ruler of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, who sends out an assassin named Frank Jacson. The killer decides to infiltrate Trotsky's house by befriending one of the young communists in Trotsky's circle.

In 1965 Josef Shaftel optioned the novel The Great Prince Died by Bernard Wolfe. The film was a co-production between the French Valoria Company and Dino De Laurentiis. It was to be shot in England but was eventually filmed in Mexico. The movie used the Isaac Don Levine's book, The Mind of an Assassin as a source.