One comes across the most random and fascinating nuggets from history when one least expects it, this most certainly applies to film. For example, I am not even sure where or what I was perusing when I first stumbled across the insane American-made pro-Soviet World War II propaganda film “The North Star”. Considered at the time of it’s release to be a “Pro-Resistance” film, the movie depicts a peaceful Ukranian village’s resistance to the Nazi invasion of Russia in the Summer of 1941. The roster of creative forces for this film is prestigious to say the least. Produced by MGM Studios and Sam Goldwyn himself is listed as Producer. Directed by Lewis Milestone, who directed such legendary Hollywood films as 1930’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and 1934’s “The Front Page”, among others. This film is quite sympathetic to the Russian people, more specifically the happy Ukranian villagers depicted. I would surmise that I can’t recall a film being this Pro-Russian that hadn’t been made by Russians. By contrast, “The North Star” is more Pro-Russian and Ukranian than “Casablanca” is Pro-Resistance. The film is steeped in propagating the idea of a Mythic edge to Russian culture.
While watching the opening credits, besides Director Milestone, some of the credits read like an All-star cast of Hollywood’s most celebrated creative forces. The look of the film is magnificent, thanks in part to none other than Cinematographer James Wong Howe. The Music score is written by towering musical figure Aaron Copeland. Early Musical numbers in the film (there’s like 3 in the first 20 minutes or so) feature the songwriting talents of Ira Gershwin. Not impressed yet? The screenplay was written by Lilian Hellman. Hollywood trotted out the big guns to make a filmed response to Nazi Germany’s Military aggressions in Eastern Europe. I have viewed a few World War II movies made in the 1940’s, such as “The Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Objective, Burma!”, “The North Star” is easily those films’ equal in terms of staging credible-looking War action scenes. In some ways, as far as the tone of World War II movies go, this movie is totally bonkers.
The film begins in a sweet little Ukranian village, where folks ride around on Horses and Women carry baskets and wear bonnets and frilly shit like that. They’re dressed like the Women in that creepy-ass “Midsommar” movie from a few years ago without the Pagan Human sacrifice ceremonies. It’s the beginning of Summer and the end of the school year, so there are many festivities going on in the Village and we get to see some song and dance numbers with catchy lyrics by Ira Gershwin. The musical numbers in the village are supposed to be traditional folk celebratory dances, they seem more like something between Busby Berkeley and the Marx Brothers. Everyone in the Village is having a swell time, including Dana Andrews as a Russian Air Pilot who struts around in his dashing-looking Russian uniform. Then there is Anne Baxter as a wholesome salt-of-the-Earth-but-her-make-up-is-perfect Ukranian Woman. Walter Huston is a Ukranian Village Doctor in the film who also shoots Nazis. It took me half the movie to figure out that Walter Brennan was also in this as a cantankerous and strategic Villager. Besides the two Walters, the movie also casts Dean Jagger as a Villager and a young Farley Granger as a youthful machine-gun toting Partisan. The merriment carries on, and the next day after the festival and accompanying Musical numbers, Airman Dana Andrews leads a group of tweens and Villagers on a trek to Kiev, and a large seasonal Youth celebration. Like a large Community Traditional Youth Retreat. Andrews and the Villagers pack up their wagons and head on their voyage down the Highway.
Surprise! On their journey, they are suddenly witnesses to Nazis bombing the Highway, looks like the Blitzkrieg is on the air. In a spectacular sequence, Andrews directs the children into a ditch while a series of explosions occur on screen which are amazingly realistic-looking. I thought while watching this there is no way the SAG would be cool with Sam Goldwyn dropping bombs on card-carrying members, they must have rigged up the sound stage with timed explosions; the scene is that effective, it makes you wonder how they did it. Wooden power lines fall on top of wagons loaded with Villagers, the War with Germany is on and cracking. Andrews returns the children to the village and then goes off to join his compatriots in the Air Force. Meanwhile back at the Slavic ranch, the villagers are suddenly prepared to defend and protect their lands. Knowing that the Nazis are on their way, anyone that can fire a rifle in the correct direction is conscripted into the partisan resistance, boot camp begins immediately in the hills. The movie suddenly shifts from looking like “Fiddler on the Roof” to “Red Dawn”. The Women, Elderly and Children are left behind to be exploited and attempt to burn the Village to the ground as the Nazis are driving down the road they just bombed, the Nat-zees are close enough to see the smoke of the burning Village in the sky . The most notable name in the cast who portrays a Nazi is Erich Von Stroheim, as an evil, yet contrite, Joseph Mengele-type physician.
The film transitions from happy diorama of Ukranian Village life to super gritty War movie in two shakes of a Bear’s tail. The Nazis are like, so evil. Not only do they callously mow down fleeing Villagers when they first breach the town limits, they use captured Village children to give blood transfusions to wounded Nazi soldiers, how ghastly. The kids sit in a Hospital visiting room, waiting to get called into the Doctor’s office to get drained. The movie makes you upset at those villainous stormtroopers. We are given ample emotional ammunition in this to require a reprisal, we need payback. I can only imagine how this movie was received by gung-ho Americans in 1943. The Army of villagers training in the Hills is of course quickly training to become a crack fighting unit, somewhere between Robin Hood’s Merry Men and Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys. The Nazis ride in snazzy Volvo squad cars, the Russians ride around on sweaty Horseback.
Following the early explosion scene, the ensuing action scenes are equally impressive, as we view an air-and-ground battle involving Airman Andrews and his Russian flyboy comrades in action. Andrews always appeared to me to look bleary-eyed, like he just woke up from an all-night bender. We get some nighttime Potato Masher-wielding Nazis, at least a couple of full-on battle scenes between Nazi troops and Russian Partisans, I am hard pressed to think of a a film where a whole village of characters are performing Folk Dance medleys and ten minutes later in the movie are fighting to the death with invaders. Copeland’s score is grandiose and sweeping, I didn’t realize he had done film scores directly, this sounds reminiscent of the works of Erich Korngold or Max Steiner. I was further surprised to learn that the film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Cinematography for Howe, Best Score for Copeland, and Lillian Hellman’s screenplay, which was an original, unlike her other nomination two years prior for “The Little Foxes”, which was an adaption.
Von Stroheim’s Nazi Physician is apologetic for his actions on behalf of the Third Reich to a degree, Hellman’s bombastic writing style that is prevalent in her and Dashiell Hammett’s screenplay for “Watch on the Rhine” comes through here in a couple of sequences where characters such as Von Stroheim’s go on political rants and we get brief synopses on World affairs. I only learned of Hellman initially from watching the 1977 film “Julia” with Jane Fonda as Hellman, I did not realize what a firebrand her and her screenplays were. “Watch on the Rhine” is certainly passionate and wordy, “The North Star” is of similar demonstratively emotional leanings, but devolves into a slick-looking gutbucket action movie. As I viewed this movie, I couldn’t help but think it seemed extremely pro-Russian, the rah-rah Soviet timbre was unusual to watch from an American Hollywood film.
At it’s release, the film was considered to be part of the American war movement. By the time the 1950’s rolled around during the height of the Red Scare, the film was deemed pro-Communist by some, and was actually cited and censured to a degree, along with two other films; “Mission to Moscow” from 1943 and “Song of Russia” from 1944. These three films were cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, “The North Star” was actually altered (they cut a couple of early scenes and included an editorial involving the situation in the mid-1950’s in Hungary) in 1956 after the Hungarian uprising and the film’s title was changed to “Armored Attack!”. The movie was addended to make it appear to seem less Soviet-friendly.
I found the timing of the featuring of this film on TCM to be curious, not concerning so much as peculiar. The representation of Ukraine, considering the current state of affairs there in 2024, I found fascinating. I couldn’t help but notice that while the film portrays characters living in Ukraine in 1941, those same characters are written to identify with Soviet Russian Citizenship, that it is a source of civic and personal pride. Judging by the state of current affairs in Ukraine, being reminded of this using pro-Russian nostalgia was slightly and potentially intellectually provocative. The film is well-executed and topical enough that whether TCM was attempting to inject a subliminal political message into the air is superfluous, it just made me wonder.
The surprise to me about this film besides it’s topical relevance to events happening now and it’s impressive tech look was how salacious and wantonly violent the movie is, the powers that be really seemed to want to rile people up and certainly Axis Power aggression around the world demanded a forceful response, the hearts and minds of the public were necessary to defeat this inimitable foe. That said, for a movie from the 1940’s that wasn’t a Biblical disaster movie, this flick has quite a body count.
Leave a Reply