From Russia to Hollywood

Slipshod filmmaking buries a worthy story in Frederick Keeve's poorly argued, badly-made documentary about Michael Chekhov and George Shdanoff, two Russian-born acting coaches who worked with the likes of James Dean, Gary Cooper, and Marilyn Monroe. The saga of how these two men, particularly Chekhov, fled Communists in Russia and Nazis in Germany to become the subjects of an admiring cult of thespians is fascinating, and a handful of the interviews are stimulating--the late Anthony Quinn tells jovial stories of his lessons in a variety of accents and personas, and Robert Stack and Patricia Neal give detailed explanations of how they were both guided to career-best performances in Written on the Wind and Hud, respectively. As a filmmaker, however, Keeve frequently undermines his story by making meretricious claims, serving up flimsy attempts to link Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson to Chekhov and Shdanoff, for instance, while also turning to actor Craig Sheffer (recent films: Berserker, Turbulence 3) as a contemporary spokesperson for the continued influence of the famed Russian coaches' acting techniques (a more physically-oriented spin-off of Stanislavsky's method). To add cinematic insult to narrative injury, the film clips are frequently muddy and poorly cropped and the interviews are uniformly unattractive, making stars such as Jack Palance and Leslie Caron seem decrepit beyond their years. Definitely worth considering for larger cinema studies collections, this is optional for others. Aud: C, P. (D. Fienberg)