While you guys are all out bombing around in your Buicks I'm watching this bomb... It's an old East German television series about an Interflug Il-62 aircraft and it's crew bouncing around from one adventure in a strange place to another all while extolling the virtues of Socialism... The story lines are implausible and the special effects laughable. There is some witty dialog if you understand German. Some good footage of Cuba, pre-unification Berlin and Moscow. And, where else are you going to see an Ilyushin-62 except in a museum or in a farmer's field in Germany.
Yeah, but not in a comedy way. They're very serious, it's supposed to be a drama. The last episode I watched had the stereotypical big bad western drug smugglers in it. They were depicted as grubby, middle-aged "American" with a real hate on. They spent the show trying to get the Interflug's cargo of medicinal morphine that was initially headed towards Angola. The crew was forced to make an emergency landing at some fictional African airport. (Filmed in Cuba, looks like around the Holguin area.) The poor Il-62 lost a windshield panel due to a bird-strike (tower had them flying low, ostensibly because their radar sets were no good, the imperialists had stolen the good one when they left) and so they hit a buzzard. Because it was an unscheduled emergency landing, they had to pay corrupt officials, get a new windshield panel delivered from another fraternal socialist airline on a mercy mission, and get going. Oh yeah, the drug smugglers were "American" Vietnam vets who absolutely hated the crew's Vietnamese flight attendant and threatened to rape and kill her. The "Americans" flew an immaculate DC-3 (with Caribbean registry), which of course was no where as good as the new Il-62 the East Germans showed up with. There's of course a fight scene, the heroic First Officer tries to protect the plane, but the "Americans" fight dirty and beat the hell out of him. He's only saved when a previously racist money grubbing doctor has a change of heart and decides that the Interflug mission of mercy is far more important than cash, so he calls the recently converted to Socialism police. Oh yeah, it's rich... I'm getting the popcorn ready for tonight's viewing. But first I have to go and slam a set of brakes in the wife's Rogue.
Nope, but I'm sure there's one like that in this series. I wouldn't recommend any of these for any "Progressive" Millennials who have no basis in reality, they'd tend to take this all as gospel and believe it. This stuff has similar messages that some of my wife's social work texts did; big business and money are evil, educated white males are all bad, workers are always oppressed, and so on. The series dates from 1986, so just 3 years before the Wall fell. Amazing how quickly all of this was forgotten after that event. On a positive note, I finally got a convertible out today, first time after 6 months! Man it felt good!
Hi Marc, "Mission to Moscow" was a movie made during WWII based on the book written by Joseph Davies, US ambassador to the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1930s. This was at a time when it became necessary to show the Soviets as allies in the war against the nazis. Davies completely fell under Stalin's spell and the book and movie are tripe of the worst kind, full of Davis' excuses to all of Stalin's atrocities. Purges? Needed, since the nation was full of traitors. Invasion of Finland? Defensive measure forced upon the peace-loving Soviet Union. People trying to flee Stalin's Soviet Union? Traitors. The worst part is that Davies is played by Walter Huston (one of my favorite actors) and it has ruined all of his other movies for me. Every time I watch "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" I expect Huston to express his admiration of Stalin's wisdom. Mikel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036166/
HA! Im well done. Had 3 days with 20 inches of snow off the lake to deal with; wouldve much rather been watching Russian TV. Das Vadanya! ws
Let us know how you like it! You may find this book interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Assignment-Utopia-Eugene-Lyons/dp/0887388566 When I was a kid in Spain, in the 80s, they used to play Czech and Polish children's TV programs. This was one of them... Visitors from the future driving a Lada Niva!
