Ivan's (Nikolai Cherkasov, ALEXANDER NEVSKY) loyalty-conflicted right hand man Prince Kurbsky (Mikhail Nazvanov) has sworn allegiance to Poland (in the previous film, Ivan had rewarded Kurbsky's oath of allegiance with command of the defense of the western border against the Poles. Ivan has summoned his other friend Kolychev back from the monastery where he has since become the monk Phillip. Phillip agrees to aide Ivan if Ivan allows him to intercede on behalf of some condemned men (including three of his own kinsmen). Ivan grants this request and then goes behind his back and has them all executed. The boyars are thus able to convince Phillip of Ivan's abuse of power. Ivan has Phillip seized and jailed when he stands up to him, so the boyars decide the must assassinate Ivan and replace him with Prince Staritsky (Pavel Kadochnikov, DARK EYES). Ivan and his Crimean border commander's son Fyodor suspect Staritsky's mother (Serafima Birman, WINGS OF VICTORY) of having poisoned the Tsarina and plot to turn the tables on his would-be assassins. Although IVAN THE TERRIBLE PART II is subtitled "The Boyar's Plot" - they did plenty of plotting in the previous film - the sequel is where Ivan Grozny lives up to his nickname (and looks visually like what one usually thinks of when conjuring up an image of the Tsar). That is, of course, why the film was not shown until 1958 (although it was finished in 1945) since it depicted Ivan's crueler and more duplicitous nature; one assumes that the final part of the trilogy would have helped to provide a fully dimensional portrait of Ivan. The sequel is just as meticulously composed as the first film (it also includes a color sequence), and the analytic viewer may have to take it in in more than one viewing. The plot is just as full of intrigue and ample motivations for betrayal, but the cinematographic aspects are bound to overwhelm.

When the Teutonic Knights invade Pskov and massacre its citizenry, Prince Alexander Nevsky (Nikolai Cherkasov, later Eisenstein's IVAN THE TERRIBLE) steps up to rally the people of Novgorod to prevent a similar invasion. On the surface, ALEXANDER NEVSKY is not arthouse Eisenstein. It is as exquisitely composed in its technical dimensions as anything he had done before and demonstrates the progress towards the hyper-composed and exhaustively-detailed IVAN THE TERRIBLE. The film is also "lightened" by the comic supporting characters of Vasili (Nikolai Okhlopkov) and Gavrilo (Andrei Abrikosov, also in both parts of IVAN THE TERRIBLE) who go to war to win the hand of Olga (Vera Ivashova) and fight alongside maiden warrior Vasilisa (Aleksandra Danilova). They pop up suddenly in the midst of Eisenstein's excitingly-edited battle (featuring some bloodless but brutal blows that you would not see in an American picture of the time) and sort of derail the tension with their boisterousness. Some politically-motivated elements that also informed IVAN THE TERRIBLE appear here; the boyars and the church resist Alexander's rallying cry just as they would Czar Ivan's ambitions for a unified Russia and standing army. Studies of the film have made more explicit the likening of the Teutonic Knights to the Nazis (who employed their imagery in propaganda) and the ultimately justified anxieties over the proposed non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.