Miss V from Moscow (1942)

Load of rubbish!!

i must have seen a different film!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

If you are looking for one of the worst American propaganda films of WWII, I would suggest you take a look at "Miss V From Moscow". It features terrible acting, terrible writing, terrible accents and terrible direction...and a film must work hard to be terrible in all four departments!When the film begins, you learn that a Russian spy, Vera Marova (Lola Lane...the least talented of the Lane sisters) has been called on for a completely ridiculous mission. This lady is apparently the EXACT double for a German spy and they want her to take her place!! The idea of two identical strangers who are spies is ludicrous---the idea that Lane could approximate a Russian or German accent is even more ludicrous! In fact, throughout the film, it's like accent goulash---with weird accents that are just not right or just plain old American accents with no attempt to even approximate the real thing. It comes off as cheap....and is made much worse by dialog that, frankly, sounds like it was written by a couple of 10 year- olds! So what IS Vera supposed to do and where does the film go? Well, who cares...it's never believable or interesting...though she is assisted by an American on the run who pretends, briefly, to be French...about as French as Chop Suey! Again and again, I keep thinking "how could this get any stupider???"...and yet it does! A terrible film with little to recommend it except as either a lesson to filmmakers about what NOT to do or else a film you can enjoy for laughs. By the way, in the opening scene, a soldier walks by some Russian office...and the soldier is wearing a WWI German helmet!!! Also, the German plane shot down at the end is Italian.

The Alpha DVD cover for "Miss V From Moscow" makes it look like a dynamic star vehicle for a not-so-well-known-today female star of the 1930s and 1940s, Lola Lane. But it is not quite that: the production is very cheap, and relies exclusively on stock footage for any "large-scale" action. But even when the action is small-scale, Lane is still not very involved in it; she does have a couple of good lines ("Don't you think Wolf is more to the point?" or "A great humanitarian indeed. He says so himself.") but otherwise this is a disappointing vehicle for her. And it's also pretty unconvincing as a Russian-undercover-helping-French-resistance-against-the-Nazis as well, the main reason being that everyone speaks English 90% of the time. However, the film does have some moments that remain topical to this day: paranoid leaders committing unspeakable crimes in the name of "the greater good" will never go out of fashion, or power, in any continent of the world. They just hide their crimes better these days. ** out of 4.

**SOME SPOILERS** Called into the the office of the Moscow Bureau of Counter Espionage Vera Marocve, code name Miss V,is told by Commissar Krotov that he has a secret assignment for her behind the lines in Nazi occupied Paris. It turns out that the top Nazi spy Greta Hiller has been killed by the French Resistance and her body buried and hidden from the Germans. Vera then find out that Miss V is a dead-ringer for the dead Grteta Hiller and that will give her all the cover that she needs to find out what the Germans are planing in the conduct of their war against the Soviet Union and her allies the USA & UK.Outragiously bad wartime movie with Miss V together with the French resistance trapped behind the lines and a number of fellow Soviet agents in Paris saving a major US/UK convoy from being annihilated by a fleet Nazi U-Boats, or wolf packs, in the frigid North Atlantic.Being arrested by the Nazis almost as soon as she got to France Mis V doesn't realize that she was given a golden cigarette-lighter by the French Quisling, artist Henri Vevallier,that was really a conformation of her being the ace German Spy Greta Hiller. It was given to Greta by the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself for her excellent service to the Fatherland.With Miss V now accepted by the Nazi police and Gestapo as German spy Greta Hiller she get's in touch with Henri to have him get the important information; a German planned attack on the convoy back to Moscow to prevent the evil Nazi plan from being executed. The usual wartime-propaganda that you would expect from a movie where the USSR the Evil Emprie, as President Reagen called it, is made to look as wholesome and as American as apple pie. Since the USSR was tying down as much as 300 German infantry and amour divisions in a life and death struggle with the Nazis on the Eastern Front, to the USA/UK engaging less then then 5 (The Afrika Corps) in North Africa, back then in 1942 when the film was released.Miss V using her wits and all of her charms to get her admiring but naive German officer boyfriend Col. Wolfgang Heinrick to tell her everything he knows about the secret German U-Boat attack planned on the allied convoy. Which in the end has him put against a wall and shot by the Gestapo. With the help of two allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, Steve & Gerry, Miss V and her Soviet contact Dr. Suchevcky in Paris Miss V gets the news back to Moscow before the Gestapo break into Dr. Schevcky's hideout, a gin mill, where he has a secret wireless hidden in a hollowed out beer barrel.Making their escape Miss V and her fellow Nazi-fighters make it to safety back in the USSR as Dr. Suchevcky stays and dies at his post, the radio, to get the vital information back to his boss and thus save the allied convoy from total destruction by the German Navy and Luftwaffe.Embarrassingly bad but still watchable, due to it's unintentional comedic story-line and acting, war-time movie. With the Commissar giving a patriot little speech at the end of the film about how we all have to stick together in our struggle against the Nazis. We also have a film clip of Adolf Hitler giving a rousing and rip roaring speech without sub-titles, that you can only understand if you know German,in what were told is in Paris but obviously in Germany, or the German city of Nuremberg. The speech goes on and on and on just to pad the, "Miss V from Moscow", movie to make it over it's over 60 minute length in order to qualify it as a "B" or second, or third, rate feature film . At the end of the film we see Miss V and Steve dressed up as Russian peasants laughing and living it up in the USSR on the back of a hey filled horse drawn cart. I think that they were laughing at us, not the Nazis, for putting up with and taking seriously both them and the movie.

Nazi officer: "The Russian Army is annihilated!" --- Miss V: "What!? Again!?"This is a quintessential WWII B-grade movie and, being cheaply made, it is fun! These were the days when Soviet Russia was a much admired ally, and Lola Lane plays Vera Marova "Miss V" (a Soviet spy), who resembles a top Nazi female (Greta Heller) who is permanently indisposed. Moscow smuggles her into Nazi Germany where she infiltrates the Gestapo and the Wehrmacht. They set her up in an elegant apartment which is unfortunately staffed by "Minna", the horse-faced former maid of the real Greta Heller. Knowing that she is an imposter, Minna proceeds to try and undo Miss V. The movie is full of WWII-era zingers against the Nazi war machine, delivered by Lola Lane with an inimitable sense of timing. One of the famous Lane sisters, Lola has a marvellously rich contralto voice. Miss V comes to the aid of some downed fliers and tries to aid them in escaping. Simple plot. Exciting at times.One of the funniest things in the film is the hat Miss V wears for the last 10 minutes of the movie. It is a sort of GIANT beret, which is easily twice the size of the diminutive star's head.Another remarkable thing is how much Soviet Russia resembles southern California... there are a couple of hayride scenes in which this is apparent.If you're not in a mood for a serious film - this can be fun. For its genre as a B-grade war film - I give it a 7.