Moscow on the Hudson

Director: Paul Mazursky Paul Mazursky

Overview

Robin Williams stars as Vladimir Ivanoff, a Russian sax player working in a circus whose home life with his warm and colorful family does not compensate for his feelings of repression and lost opportunity in his native land. When the circus comes to New York, Williams goes on a shopping trip to Bloomingdale's -- where he suddenly announces his intention to defect. Befriended and given a place to stay by security guard Lionel Witherspoon (Cleavant Derricks), Vladimir makes the slow and sometimes painful transition from Russian to American citizen, helped along by his lady love (and fellow immigrant), Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso), and immigration attorney (and onetime Cuban refugee) Orlando Ramirez (Alejandro Rey).

Product Details

Release Date:	02/01/2020
UPC:	0683904538277
Original Release:	1984
Rating:	R
Source:	Sony Pictures Home
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Robin Williams	Vladimir Ivanoff
Cleavant Derricks	Lionel Witherspoon
Alejandro Rey	Orlando Ramirez,Counter Woman at McDonald's,Actor
Elya Baskin	Anatoly
Savely Kramarov	Boris
Oleg Rudnik	Yuri
Aleksandr Beniaminov	Vladimir's grandfather
Ludmila Kramarevsky	Vladimir's Mother,Actor
Ivo Vrzal	Vladimir's Father
Natalie Iwanow	Sasha
Tiger Haynes	Lionel's grandfather
Robert Macbeth	Lionel's Stepfather
Donna Ingram-Young	Lelanne
Olga Talyn	Svetlana
Alexander Narodetzky	Actor
Pierre Orcel	Actor
Stephanie Cotsirilos	Veronica Cohen
Fred Strother	Bill
Anthony Cortino	Male Clerk
Betsy Mazursky	Bloomingdale's Manager,Dave
Kaity Tong	Actor
Royce Rich	Bloomingdale's Cop
Christopher Wynkoop	Agent Ross
Lyman Ward	Agent Williams
Joe Lynn	Mean Man on Subway
Joy Todd	Blanche
Thomas Ikeda	Korean Cab Driver
Barbara Montgomery	Mrs. Marlowe
Dana Lorge	Wanda
Adalberto Santiago	Actor
Sam Moses	Dr. Reddy
Yakov Smirnoff	Lev
Sam Stoneburner	Panama Hat
Michael Greene	Texan
Rosetta Le Noire	The Judge
Sal Carollo	Uncle Sal
Filomena Spagnuolo	Uncle Sal's Mother
Annabella Turco	Actor
George Kelly	Wild Bill Hawthorne
Yury Olshansky	Actor
Jacques Sandulescu	Truck Driver
Emil Feist	Circus Performer
Vladimir Tukan	Strong Man
Mark Rutenberg	Actor
Yury Belov	Actor
Igor Panich	Actor
Jurij Gotowtschikow	Actor
Sina Kasper	Actor
Ken Fitch	Actor
Murray Grand	Actor
Anne E. Wile	Actor
Michael T. Laide	Waiter at Reception
Linda Kerns	Fat Lady at Bloomingdale's
Armand Dahan	Iranian
Jose Rabelo	Supermarket Clerk
Jim Goodfriend	Actor
James Prendergast	Actor
Paul Davidovsky	Russian Man
Arkady Shabashev	Actor
Donald King	Actor
David Median	Actor
Juanita Mahone	Actor
Robert Kasel	Actor
Kikue Tashiro	Actor
Joyce R. Korbin	Actor
Luis Ramos	Mexican Dishwasher
Kim Chan	Chinese Customer
Maria Conchita Alonso	Lucia Lombardo
Eyde Byrde	Lionel's Mother
Ivo Vrzal-Wiegand	Actor
Aleksandr Narodetsky	Actor
Eric Orbom	Young Frenchman
David McHugh	Composer

Technical Credits

Paul Mazursky

Leon Capetanos

Paul Mazursky	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Leon Capetanos	Screenwriter
Geoffrey Taylor	Producer
Dennis L. Maitland	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Paul Mazursky's tale of a Russian saxophone player, Vladimir Ivanoff (Robin Williams), who defects in Bloomingdale's during a New York tour is one of the director's most accomplished and affecting works. As longtime fan Pauline Kael once observed, Mazursky is most inspired at his messiest -- when he casually strings observational scenes together, bound by a cohesive idea. Moscow on the Hudson embodied a stride forward for the director; Mazursky and co-screenwriter Leon Capetanos are able to maintain two narrative levels at once. On its surface, the story retains the haphazard, random, and slightly chaotic feel of everyday life in the States (like Mazursky's earlier pictures), but beneath it all, Mazursky and Capetanos meticulously structure the script, never once abandoning the path of watching Vlad become fully Americanized and relinquish his cultural identity. This idea of bittersweet assimilation not only anchors the picture, but sustains its sad-eyed seriocomic flavor. Mazursky and Capetanos resist the urge to overtly politicize; they suggest that the socioeconomic drawbacks of living on the far side of the Curtain (such as the thousand-person lineups for toilet paper, poorly sized shoes, etc.) may have threatened to make life miserable, but that the existence of family and friends -- and a Russian cultural identity -- partially redeemed it all, which explains why Vlad so misses his homeland even as he relishes political asylum. Most clever are the related parallels that Mazursky and Capetanos establish between Vlad's kinfolk and the African-American clan of Lionel (Cleavant Derricks), with whom he comes to reside (such as the similarities of their eccentric grandfathers) -- reminding us that family is family, regardless of cultural or political backdrop. The supporting cast of immigrant characters, such as Maria Conchita Alonso as Vlad's Italian lover, Lucia; and the late Flying Nun vet Alejandro Rey as Argentinean immigration attorney Orlando Ramirez -- is uniformly superb. Most impressive, however, is Williams, who climbs so deeply into character that he loses all traces of himself. That he failed to earn an Oscar nomination for this picture is incredible. In interviews, he has vaguely referenced Mazursky's hyper-disciplined directorial style -- and one senses that this director, like George Roy Hill on the Garp set, refused to let Williams cut up his scenes with shtick. That is fortunate; the actor's performance suggests that his ability as a thespian, when it is properly disciplined and grounded in a worthy production, far outstrips that of his Hollywood contemporaries. Mazursky and Capetanos fill their script with hilarious, touching, insightful moments, many used to capture the confusion and insanity that an Eastern European would experience upon immigrating to the Big Apple.