One of the big mysteries of film history is why Jack Gold's 'Red Monarch' has as good as disappeared: It is hard to find, does not come on the telly, and has, as of today (23/12/23), garnered no more than three reviews on IMDb. All this is a mystery because the film is absolutely brilliant. It shows Stalin's (Colin Blakely) private life in about 1950-53, and it does so largely accurately. You may gasp at what you see, but it all happened more or less like the film shows it. Stalin's paranoia, sadistic humour and skill as a manipulator are well attested, as is Beria's (David Suchet) role as serial rapist who forced his underlings to supply him with pretty young athletes. Check Sebag-Montefiore's 'Court of the Red Czar' - he has the details and the references to original sources. For all that, 'Red Monarch' is not a documentary; it is a comedy steeped in sarcastic, dark humour, which is arguably the only approach to the horrors of Stalinism that does not put your sanity at risk. The only reason why I am not rating the film higher than 8 stars is its episodic structure. While the same figures appear across all the short vignettes that make up the movie, there is no narrative arc. In that respect, 'The Inner Circle' (1991) is better. But only in that respect.
