The read
Audiences rate it 12 points higher than critics do.
Synopsis
Set in tsarist Russia around the turn of the century and based on a true story of a Russian Jewish peasant Yakov Bog who was wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime - the “ritual murder” of a Gentile child in Kyiv. We witness the unrelenting detail of the peasant handyman's life in prison and see him gain in dignity as the efforts to humiliate him and make him confess fail.
Ratings
IMDb6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes56%
Audiences rate it 12 points higher than critics do.
26 audience votes
Key crew
- John FrankenheimerDirector
- Dalton TrumboScreenplay
- Maurice JarreOriginal Music Composer
Cast
- Alan BatesYakov Bok
- Dirk BogardeBibikov
- Georgia BrownMarfa Golov
- Ian HolmGrubeshov
- David WarnerCount Odoevsky
- Hugh GriffithLebedev
- Elizabeth HartmanZinaida
- Murray MelvinPriest
- Carol WhiteRaisl
- Michael GoodliffeOstrovsky
- Mike PrattFather Anastasy
Stills
Themes
jewish ghettofalsely accusedsocialismjew persecutionzionismantisemitismfalse accusationsjusticeinjusticeimperial russiakyiv (kiev), ukraineprison rape