Three Red Movies

Despite my staunchly capitalist tendencies, I’m fascinated by the Soviets, Reds and Russians. I’ve read and seen “Enemy at the Gates” (the book/movie about the battle of Stalingrad, August 1942-January 1943) but somehow that wasn’t enough. Nor was the interminable “Dr Zhivago” with Omar Sharif and Obi-Wan Guinness, or the insomnia-curing “Reds” with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. I wanted MORE MORE MORE! Here are three more obscure ones...

The North Star. I don’t know where i saw pieces of this, but I decided to track it down. It’s on a Neflix DVD with two other movies. It’s a 1942 movie made by the glorious comrades in Hollywood (Stalin’s minions? No....!). The first half of the film shows happy, well-fed Russian peasants (the same type who were brutally murdered by Stalin ten years before) blissfully unaware that a Fascist menace is lurking at the borders. They sing so much I’m wondering if this is actually a musical. Finally June 22, 1941 rolls around, the music stops and the fun begins. The Germans take over their village, while the able-bodied men escape to the forest and become partisans. Eventually the well-equipped, clean-living, and expertly-led partisan group attacks the village and liberates it from the Germans. The Red Army itself is nowhere to be found, presumably retreating big time as Stalin traded space – of which the Soviets had a surplus – in exchange for time. A few people end up as casualties.

 What I find interesting is how clever this “propaganda” is, ostensibly for US audiences in 1942 to persuade them that the Soviets, who until Pearl Harbor were ideologically enemies of the US, suddenly became our friends due to the mutual antipathy for Nazi Germany. To be believable as propaganda, I suppose they couldn’t be TOO hard on the Germans. The Germans come off as very disciplined, very professional, very competent, and even some of the German doctors are “civilized” and not Nazis. The Germans are not complete animals. Interestingly, the Russian doctor chastises the “civilized” non-Nazi German doctor by telling him, “so long as you’re cooperating with your Nazi superiors and obeying their orders, don’t kid yourself that you’re any better than they are.”

 Since the movie was made in 1942, while the war was in full swing, I wondered how they expected to acquire authentic German uniforms and equipment. Sure enough, the helmets are all the WWI pattern steel helmets (1916-18) with oversized decals; the rifles look like Gewehr 98 (WWI) vs. Kar98k WWII models; the machine guns, rather than MG34 or MG42 are the WWI Schwarzlose models. Rather than the modern Wehrmacht of 1942, Russia has been invaded by the Reichwehr of 1934. The Stukas look authentic, as do a few MP40s. Somehow I doubt the Nazi government would have been too cooperative at assisting Hollywood at producing this “gee, aren’t the Russians swell?” movie.

Battleship Potemkin. This is the old 1925 silent movie. (Somehow my mind reads “Potemkin” to read “Pumpkin”, which gives a somewhat different feel to the story...the good ship Lollipop?) The Potemkin mutinied in 1905 (12 years before the Revolution). According to the story as told in the film: their main reason for overthrowing the officers was due to horrible meat (rancid with maggots) and inedible stew. The ship’s doctor claimed there was nothing wrong with either. The men protested that Russian POWs in Japan got better food – and knowing how ruthless the Japanese are, that says volumes about the Russian Navy. The captain ordered the marines onboard to shoot the unruly sailors, but they balked at that, and before long all hell broke loose. They threw the officers overboard, and the sailor who instigated the rebellion was shot by an officer. They brought his body ashore, labelled “shot for soup” ("no soup for you!") and a rebellion broke out in Odessa. Finally the Cossacks were summoned and shot the unarmed protesters on the steps, leading to the famous shot of the baby carriage tumbling down the steps.

Arsenal. No, not about the Premier League team from north London (well featured in the Colin Firth ORIGINAL of “Fever Pitch”, not that crap with Jimmy Fallon about the Red Sox). This is yet another B&W silent film from the early Soviet Union. It seems to focus on an arsenal (arms depot) which was disputed between two major armed groups: Ukrainian nationalists and Bolsheviks. Since it takes place during the Russian Civil War (1917-22) you can guess which side wins. The Ukrainians come off as the bad guys. Lots of Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles and Sokolov-mounted Maxim machine guns.

 I couldn’t really follow the plot (even with Russian/English subtitles) and the constant close-ups of various characters doing nothing at all got old very quick. Probably the most interesting part of the film was elements featuring Germans: both the end of the war (WWI) showing German soldiers in their late war steel helmets, essentially chasing hapless Russian soldiers back home from the front (note: unlike WWII, in WWI the Germans won the Eastern Front war): and a very touching segment where three soldiers – Russian, German, and French – each return home to their wives. The wives (Russian, German, and French) are clutching newborn babies, looking very guilty, and the soldier/husband – presumably away from home for far more than nine months – angrily demands CHTO? WER? QUI? Finally, there was a considerable amount of very unhappy looking people missing various limbs. War sucks – for everyone.