The Fall of Berlin.

Mikhail Chiaureli's birthday present to the seventy-year old Stalin (1949) is the quintessential cinema contribution to the cult of the dictator. Seen today in this newly restored release, it also stands at the summit of old Soviet kitsch. Chiaureli, a fellow Georgian, pulls out all the stops in this Adoration of Stalin (played by another Georgian, and Stalin's favorite, Mikhail Gelovani). We first see the benign General Secretary puttering in his arbor as the soundtrack (score by Shostakovich) swells with hymnal, devotional sonority. Here Stalin dispenses sage counsel to an awed aw-shucks lovesick Stakhanovite steelworker. Later, and throughout the film, with infinite calm and wisdom, Stalin's steady presence guides, advises, gently prods all those around him, and ultimately leads the epic march of the Red Army to Berlin. Completing the heavenly portrait, Stalin descends by air to the conquered German capital to receive the grateful hosannas of the victors below. (Never mind that this never took place. The successor General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev singled out the film for its fictionalized idolatry in his famous "Secret Speech" denouncing the Stalin cult in 1956.) Chiaureli cross-cuts the Stalin and battle sequences with footage of Hitler, the anti-Savior, as a lampooned hysteric, no match for the warlord Stalin. Intimations of the Cold War to come appear in images of a porcine, disagreeable Churchill at Yaha, and Hitler's counting on a deal with the approaching Americans. This digitally remastered DVD, improves the quality of the original Agfacolor (a trophy from the Germans), and includes an informative historical slide show. (Distributed by International Historic Films, Inc., www.IHFfilm.com)--Louis Menashe