(3 of 3)
The Journey (Alby; MGM) takes the road that is rutted with good intentions. The film was apparently planned, in a soft-headed way, as an effort to find a silver lining in the Iron Curtain. As it has turned out, it seems no more than an unfeeling attempt to make a little money. The hero of the story is a soulful Russian major (Yul Brynner) who commands a border garrison during the 1956 Hungarian rebellion and the ensuing slaughter. He detains a busload of foreigners who are trying to leave the country, because he suspects that some of them may really be Hungarians. Almost at once, the major starts to roll his ochi chernye at one of the passengers, an Englishwoman (Deborah Kerr), and offers to become her devoted Slav; but soon he discovers to his displeasure that his pretty little anglichanka is in love with another passenger (Jason Robards Jr.). The major, soulful Russian that he is, swirls his sorrows into a big black cape and goes thundering about the countryside on a big black horse, looking somehow, as Actor Brynner keeps poking about unpleasantly with his riding crop, less and less like a Red Army officer and more and more like a Freudian interpretation of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar. Back in town, the major-hero toasts the heroine in vodka, then chews up the glass as a chaser, superbly indifferent to the blood that dribbles down his chin. Ekh, Tovarish! What does a man care for such scratches when his heart is bleeding—and not only from the wounds of love. The major's heart is bleeding for all those dead Hungarians: "I know my men. They love these people."
How the poor fellow suffers! The camera follows in fascination as he is ravaged by the conflict between love and duty, country and humanity. In the end, with a gesture of completely incredible nobility, the major betrays his country by permitting the refugees to escape ("I would never have been able to sleep again"). Whereupon the scriptwriter suddenly remembers the freedom fighters, who are permitted to provide the shocker in the final scene. They cut the major down from ambush.
The spectator is thus left to conclude that, as far as the tasteless makers of this movie are concerned, the most significant achievement of the Hungarian revolution was the murder of an innocent Russian.