The Girl in the Kremlin
| The Girl in the Kremlin | |
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A promotional lobby card for "The Girl in the Kremlin."
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| Directed by | Russell Birdwell |
| Produced by | Albert Zugsmith |
| Starring |
Lex Barker Zsa Zsa Gabor Maurice Manson Natalie Darryl |
| Music by | Joseph Gershenson |
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Production
company |
Universal International
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| Distributed by | Universal International |
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Release date
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Running time
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81 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Girl in the Kremlin is a 1957 American film noir mystery film which puts forth the premise that Joseph Stalin (played by Maurice Manson) faked his own death in 1953 and then moved to Greece with a fortune in Soviet currency. Zsa Zsa Gabor plays a dual role, Stalin's nurse and lover as well as her twin sister who, unaware of Stalin's plot, hires an ex O.S.S. agent (Lex Barker) to find her sister.
This was the last of five films directed by Russell Birdwell, a well-known publicist.
In Moscow, four terrified women prisoners are brought to the office of Joseph Stalin, who chooses Dasha, the smallest and most beautiful, and punishes her by shaving off her long hair. Moments later, plastic surgeon Dr. Petrov leads Stalin into the operating room and transforms his face so that he is unrecognizable. After his handlers announce publicly that Stalin has died, they secret him away to a hideout, where Greta Grisenko serves as his nurse. Meanwhile, Greta's twin sister Lili continues searching for her, as she has been ever since Russian troops invaded their home country of Lithuania and took Greta, against her will, to Moscow. Earlier, Lili had engaged private investigator Steve Anderson, an American living in Berlin, to find Greta, and now locates him there and asks why he has failed to contact her with information about her sister. Steve has discovered that Greta is working in Moscow and, despising Communists, refuses to work with Lili until she convinces him that her sister is an innocent victim of the Russians.
Steve takes Lili to the home of Mischa Rimilkin, a one-armed espionage agent who reveals that Greta has been working for Petrov. Upon receiving assurance from the American Army that Lili is not a spy, the men divulge to her that Dasha, now confined to a mental hospital, claims that Stalin has been surgically altered and is living clandestinely with Greta.
The next day, Lili once again pleads with Steve to help her locate Greta, but Steve protests that the job is too dangerous. He is won over, however, by Lili's clever idea to force Stalin into action by announcing over the radio that he is alive. As they have hoped, Stalin hears the broadcast and orders his henchman, Igor Smetka, to kill Steve.
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