Gorky Park (1983)

Director:

Michael Apted

Writers:

Martin Cruz Smith (novel)
Dennis Potter (writer)

Release Date:

12 January 1984 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller | Crime

Tagline:

It all began with three faceless bodies in the snow ...

Plot:

An investigator on the Moscow police force relentlessly pursues the solution to a triple homicide which occurred in Moscow's Gorky Park...

Plot Keywords:

Conspiracy | Nudity | Place Name In Title | Reform | Skating

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

William Hurt	...	Arkady Renko
Lee Marvin	...	Jack Osborne
Brian Dennehy	...	William Kirwill
Ian Bannen	...	Iamskoy
Joanna Pacula	...	Irina Asanova
Michael Elphick	...	Pasha
Richard Griffiths	...	Anton
Rikki Fulton	...	Maj. Pribluda
Alexander Knox	...	General
Alexei Sayle	...	Golodkin
Ian McDiarmid	...	Prof. Andreev
Niall O'Brien	...	KGB Agent Rurik
Henry Woolf	...	Levin
Tusse Silberg	...	Natasha
Patrick Field	...	Fet

Also Known As:

Gorky Park (Austria) (West Germany) [de]
Brottsplats: Gorkij parken (Sweden) [sv]
Eglima sto Gorky Park (Greece) [el]
El parque Gorky (Colombia) (cable TV title) [es]
Gorkij park (Hungary) [hu]
Gorkin puisto (Finland) [fi]
Mistério no Parque Gorky (Brazil) [pt]
Mordene i Gorkijparken (Norway) [no]
Moskova'da cinayet (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
O Mistério de Gorky Park (Portugal) [pt]
Park Gorki (Serbia) [sr]
Park Gorkiego (Poland) [pl]

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Netherlands:12 | West Germany:16 (f) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

Eagle Associates

Trivia:

The dish washing liquid (squat white bottle, green flat cap) on the kitchen counter in the flat (in Gamla Stan Stockholm) is actually Timotei shampoo which Apted thought looked more like dish washing liquid than the real thing.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Arkady's car stalls on the bridge on the way back to Moscow, the wipers are still running. As Arkady repeatedly tries to re-start the car, we see the wipers still running at full speed. In real life, each time he tried to restart the car, the wipers would slow from the drain of battery power away from the wipers to the starter motor.

Quotes:

Arkady Renko: [to the bartender] A Stinger, please.
[walks away]
Arkady Renko: Stinger.
William Kirwill: That's a whore's drink.
Arkady Renko: I am a whore.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People (#4.3)" (1991)

Soundtrack:

It's So Easy

Cold War Thriller of Highest Order, Fresh Two Decades On

Life is cheap when people are desperate.

Gorky Park is a communal leisure area in Moscow. A place of beauty available to the poorest. It was a tenet of faith of US conservatives of the day that communism had left people poor. US liberals of the day claimed that the truth of communist freedoms was being obscured by conservatives. Few in the west understood Soviet life. Whatever the faults of this film, the characters were real, desperate and flawed.

The hero is part superman in the violence. Both touched and Teflon. Hurt plays the naive observer who is witnessing cracks in the paintwork. An honest cop who knows enough politics to live.

The mystery is disturbing, and things get worse. Soviet Russia was a flawed vision of idealists. Nothing works as it is supposed to, and when some well meaning youths attempt to achieve utopia, establishment has a way of buying souls.

Gorky Park is a vision that might have been set in any of many nations where totalitarian regimes fed on the dreams of youth. This is not a common or average film. The violence is extreme and apparently unnecessary, except in some places in the world, such things happen.

I've not read the book.