The Fall of Berlin

Original title: Padenie Berlina

1950
2h 47m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A years-long struggle of the Soviet people against the German war machine is shown from the point of view of Stalin and from the point of view of an ordinary soldier and his beloved girl.A years-long struggle of the Soviet people against the German war machine is shown from the point of view of Stalin and from the point of view of an ordinary soldier and his beloved girl.A years-long struggle of the Soviet people against the German war machine is shown from the point of view of Stalin and from the point of view of an ordinary soldier and his beloved girl.

Director
- Mikheil Chiaureli
Writers
- Mikheil Chiaureli
- Pyotr Pavlenko
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.6/10

563

YOUR RATING

Director
- Mikheil Chiaureli
Writers
- Mikheil Chiaureli
- Pyotr Pavlenko
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins

Trivia
The scene at the end of the movie where Joseph Stalin appears in Berlin never occurred. After seeing this in the film, Stalin told the filmmaker that he had wished he had gone to Berlin.

Goofs
Hitler and Eva Braun's wedding is accompanied by Felix Mendelssohn'a classic composition "The Wedding March," but in reality all of Mendelssohn's music was banned in Nazi Germany because he was Jewish.

Quotes
Alexei Ivanov nicknamed Aliocha: Greetings, Vissarion Ivanovich.
Iosef Stalin: No, this is how my father was called. And I am Joseph Vissarionovich.
Alexei Ivanov nicknamed Aliocha: I know, comrade Stalin.

Alternate versions
There is an Italian DVD edition of this movie, distributed by DNA Srl, entitled "La caduta di Berlino". The movie was re-edited with the contribution of the film history scholar Riccardo Cusin. This version is also available in streaming on some platforms.

Connections
Edited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une vague nouvelle (1999)

User reviews15

Review

Featured review

10/10

A classic of its kind

In the annals of movies that afford rich entertainment in ways totally unintended by their makers, The Fall of Berlin occupies an honoured place.

The story, the vicissitudes of a soldier at the front and his sweetheart in a German forced labour camp, is juxtaposed with sequences of Stalin and Hitler conducting the war.

Stalin, wise, kind and, of course, a supreme military leader is a hoot, but it is Hitler who rivets and enthralls. In scenes overdrawn to the point of parody and beyond, all livid blues and menacing shadows, actor V. Savelyev delivers a performance that should have had him sent to the gulag for upstaging his fellow despot. In his final, hilarious scene, his dog Blondi is despached by a spiked canape delivered by Eva Braun during their wedding breakfast - surely the cinema's finest death scene!

10 out of 10!