The North Star (film)

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Movie
Original title The North Star
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1943
length 106 minutes
Rod
Director Lewis Milestone
script Lillian Hellman
production Samuel Goldwyn
music Aaron Copland
camera James Wong Howe
cut Daniel Mandell
occupation

Not in the credits

The North Star is a 1943 American war film directed by Lewis Milestone ; the script was written by Lillian Hellman . The main roles were played by Anne Baxter , Dana Andrews and Walter Huston . The film was shot in black and white.

action

A beautiful summer day in the Ukrainian village of North Star. First three families are introduced. First there is the Pavlov family. Father Rodion is the village chief. He and his wife Sophia have two daughters, Marina and Olga. Boris Simonov and his wife Nadya have two sons, Kolya, who serves in the Air Force and wears a uniform throughout the film, and Damian. Finally, the family of the famous doctor Dr. Kurin, who with his wife Anna has two children, Clavdia and Grischa. The swineherd Karp is also introduced. It is shown several times how happy everyone is.

It is the last day of school before the holidays. Damian is awarded as the best student of the year and can thus go to higher school. There is also a speech by the school principal about the great history of the country and the task of every pupil to live up to it, as well as a performance by the school choir. In the evening there is a big festival in the village, with lots of singing and dancing.

The next morning, Marina, Damian, Clavdia and Grischa set out on a five-day hike to Kiev under the guidance of Kolya. The first day is pleasant with a lot of singing. On the second day, they are taken by Karp, who drives a group of covered wagons towards Kiev. Here, too, there is singing, but the singing is interrupted by an aircraft squadron. Kolya can just send the people into a ditch before the squad is attacked by the planes. Even so, an adult and a child die in the attack. The covered wagons are destroyed.

Shortly afterwards the village is also attacked. Among other things, Olga is shot; she dies in her mother's arms. Thereupon Boris Simonov divides the village: The combatable men form a guerrilla army and leave the village singing after a solemn oath. The job of the others is to provide the guerrillas with food and information and to burn the village down when the Nazis arrive. Boris procures weapons for the guerrillas, but is shot down by a German fighter plane on the way back. The hiking group and Karp see this, but cannot save Boris. They bury him and take on the task of bringing the weapons to the guerrillas. However, Kolya has to return to work and therefore has to leave the group.

Two Nazi doctors, Dr. von Harden and Dr. Judges, decide to build a military hospital in North Star. As the group led by the two approaches the village, the residents begin to burn it, but don't get very far, as soon as it is captured. Sophia Pavlova is tortured because she refuses to tell where her husband, the village chief, is.

Kolya is now in combat, on an airplane. When everyone else on board has been shot and he cannot fly and drop the bombs at the same time, he decides to direct the plane directly into a Nazi transport group in a suicide campaign.

Dr. Kurin learns that the children in the village are being used for forced blood transfusions so that injured Nazi fighters can be supplied with blood. He rushes to the hospital immediately and wants to stop this, but is quickly caught. Dr. Richter wants to arrest him, Dr. von Harden prevents this from happening. He knows the scientific achievements of Dr. Kurin and therefore respects him, but does not take him seriously as a fighter. During the conversation, a young boy who has had blood drawn comes to Dr. Kurin and dies shortly afterwards of blood loss. Dr. Kurin is allowed to take him to bury him, but he takes him to the guerrillas.

In the meantime, the arms transport, hidden in a forest, is held up by a very long and repeatedly interrupted Nazi transport. Damian decides to distract the soldiers so that the others can cross the street the transport is on. Clavdia, feeling useless and cowardly, secretly follows him. With Clavdia's help, Damian manages to hold off the Nazis long enough, and Clavdia is killed in the process. Damian is killed by a grenade and left for dead. He survived but is now blind. Soon he is found by Marina and Karp.

When Dr. Kurin brings the dead boy to the guerrillas, they decide to start the attack to recapture the village immediately, even if the weapons are not yet there. They hope to get them in time. Soon the fight will be on. Dr. Kurin finds a pistol and takes it to the hospital. There he meets Richter and von Harden. He tells about Harden that he finds the worst people who fight for the Nazis, but despise them and feel they are better. He first shoots Richter and then von Harden. In the meantime, the group with the rifles also reached the village, which was soon liberated from the Nazis. The survivors leave the village. Marina holds a monologue and says that this will be the last war and that we are looking forward to a peaceful future.

production

prehistory

Lillian Hellman was asked by Harry Hopkins , a close confidante of President Roosevelt , to write the book for a documentary about the Russians' struggle against the Nazis. William Wyler was the director and Gregg Toland was the cameraman for this film . It was supposed to be shot in the Soviet Union; Hellman and Wyler already had Moscow's permission to do so. During the negotiations with Samuel Goldwyn , the documentary turned into a semi-documentary and then a commercial film. During this time, Wyler was serving in the Air Force and was replaced by Lewis Milestone at Hellman's request.

script

Hellman was very happy with her script. She wanted to show that collectivizations in Soviet agriculture were successful and would even be the future. She had visited such a collective herself, albeit in the vicinity of Moscow and organized by Soviet government agencies.

Very upset with the changes by Lewis Milestone and Samuel Goldwyn, Lillian Hellman bought himself out of the contract for $ 30,000. She published her original script in 1943, which was unusual at the time. However, according to Bernard F. Dick, these were not substantial changes, the real problem was that Milestone, Goldwyn, and William Cameron Menzies took an approach where the script was above all simple. However, this is also seen differently. The changes would make the showdown between Kurin and Harden seem powerless. The Ukrainian counterattack therefore also looks more like a cavalry attack from a routine Western . Hellman was replaced by Edward Chodorov , who was not named in the film.

Production companies

The film was produced by the Samuel Goldwyn Company.

occupation

For Farley Granger it was the debut film, for the former child star Jane Withers the first dramatic role as an adult.

Ironically, Erich von Stroheim and Martin Kosleck , the performer of the Nazi doctors, the only Jews in the cast were.

music

Goldwyn's preferred candidate for the music was Igor Stravinsky .

The first 35 minutes or so of The North Star reminded some reviewers of a musical or an operetta. The songs that are all sung in this part of the film were written by Aaron Copland (music) and Ira Gershwin (text). They were in detail:

  • Song of the Fatherland , sung by the school choir on the last day of school
  • Chari Vari Rastabari , sung at the village festival
  • The Younger Generation sung by Grischa (Eric Roberts), Miranda (Anne Baxter), Clavdia (Jane Withers), Kolya (Dana Andrews) and Damian (Farley Granger) on the hike on the first day
  • No Village Like Mine , sung by Karp (Walter Brennan), the young people on the excursion and the tour company on the wagon shortly before the first attack by the Germans
  • Song of the Guerillas , sung when the guerrillas left the village

World premieres

The world premiere was on November 4, 1943 in New York City . The film was distributed by RKO Pictures .

On DVD, The North Star was released on May 21, 2002 on DVD about films from World War II .

reception

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
audience
IMDb

The film received a rating of 6.0 out of 10 on IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes did not give a critical rating due to a lack of reviews, the audience rating is 2.7 out of 5 with an approval rate of 27%.

Contemporary reviews

In general, the film received good reviews.

The North Star has so much "moving and triumphant" that the "deviations from reality are generally overlooked". The acting performances of Walter Huston and Erich von Stroheim are highly praised, as well as that of Walter Brennan . The contrast between the “operetta-like” and idyllic image of the village and its inhabitants and the hail of bombs that set in shortly afterwards is criticized, the change would point too clearly to the “theatrical nature”. It would take too much time until the film finally "gets to its story". "After that it is an inspiring" story. After the attack, “the tension and excitement are so great that reflection” is not easy in the film. The film has its climax "in an eloquent scene that very well portrays the idea that everyone who helps the fascists are enemies of humanity".

In the New York Mirror , Frank Quinn, then one of the newspaper's full-time critics, said it was “one of the liveliest war dramas.” This criticism was replaced in part of the edition by a criticism from editor-in-chief Jack Lait, who spoke of “pure Bolshevik propaganda” which "couldn't be more obvious even if it were paid for by Stalin ". In doing so, he followed a guideline from William Randolph Hearst , the newspaper's editor.

Later reviews

According to George Chabot, the film is “as a historical anomaly [...] a must for fans of Lewis Milestone” or for “history buffs who want to see the shameless and overt propaganda only Hollywood can deliver” - “apart from the sweeping speeches "and" ignoring the first 40 minutes of sugar-sweet collective Soviet idyll "is the" action-oriented final hour of the film damn good. "Chabot goes on to say that" those who think director John Ford was overly sentimental [...] obviously not seen this film ”. According to Andrea Passafiume, the film is a "fascinating mixture of politics and melodrama."

Other critics say that "seldom in film history [...] is a film so consistent in ignoring political and historical realities". It is difficult to present the Ukrainian village even more "whitewashed and embellished", even the animals "seem to be in heaven." As a drama, the film is "more than a little ridiculous."

The Russians in The North Star seem strangely unsoviet, they are suspiciously similar to the people in the Midwest . The village shows absolutely no evidence of the Soviet era. Something similar can be seen in the "Russian folk songs written by Aaron Copland ."

The film is not as shocking as one might expect, considering the depicted crimes of the Nazis against the children. The village simply gives up on these children. This is particularly brutal. There were such accusations during the war, but he could not prove in modern sources that they actually took place - not that the Nazis lacked crimes against humanity. In addition: “The Nazis pursued a perverse philosophy of racist superiority and the preservation of pure Aryan blood. Why would wounded Nazis accept the blood of Slavic children? "

Lillian Hellman “don't waste an opportunity” to have her “noble Russians give noble speeches against the barbaric Nazis”.

The acting performances of Erich von Stroheim and Walter Huston are praised. It is also nice to see Jane Withers in such a serious role. But she is a clear mistake. Anne Baxter and Farley Granger are loved as young lovers. "Particularly ironic" is the presence of Dean Jagger , who later was a "decidedly anti-communist actor spokesman".

censorship

The Breen Office had strong concerns about approving the blood transfusion scenes in the film. But they are also very disturbing.

Awards

The North Star was nominated for six Academy Awards at the 1944 Academy Awards, but couldn't win any. The nominees were:

The film was in 1943 film of the year of the Life magazine .

Gross profit

The North Star grossed approximately $ 2,800,000 in the United States in 1943. Only 16 films were more successful that year. This is offset by production costs of about $ 3,000,000. It is the most expensive film that Samuel Goldwyn has produced.

aftermath

Radio broadcast

On January 3, 1944, a half-hour radio version was broadcast in which Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, Farley Granger and Jane Withers also spoke.

The Committee on Un-American Activities and Its Consequences on The North Star History

On October 21, 1947, Adolphe Menjou criticized the film very sharply before the Committee on Un-American Activities and said that the film should never have been made. He also doesn't think it's a real movie. Thereupon The North Star, along with Ambassador in Moscow and Song of Russia , was classified as despicable by the committee.

In 1952, Lillian Hellman was summoned to the Un-American Activities Committee. She offered to answer questions about herself, but not about others, which the committee declined. Thereupon she exercised the right not to testify against herself. Like Lewis Milestone, that put her on a Hollywood gray list .

After Lillian Hellman was blacklisted, Samuel Goldwyn withdrew his name from the film.

Armored attack

In 1957 the film rights for The North Star were sold to the television company National Telefilm Associates (NTA). NTA subjected the film to a radical change adapted to the current political situation. The introduction with the happy village and the happy hike has been removed. Instead, the film begins with the attack by the Germans. The political speeches have also been removed, as has any reference to Russia or Ukraine. It is even suggested that the resisting population could be Czech or Hungarian. As for Marina Pavlova's speech at the end of the film, one hears off-screen that the evil communism will soon bring Eastern Europe under the control of a new aggressor . Finally, on archive images of military parades on Red Square, it is said that a new war is now being waged. The result was released in US cinemas under the name Armored Attack , describes itself as "an adaptation of the film The North Star " and is 76 minutes long.

The North Star and Armored Attack

This is one of the few examples where neither film is a great, forgotten masterpiece, but together they are a fascinating example of America's political dialectic . They provide a unique lesson in how Hollywood turned one type of propaganda into an entirely different one. Other authors made similar statements.

copyright

Films submitted for copyright in the United States prior to 1964 were subject to renewal requests 28 years after that request. If this did not happen, the film went into the public domain . In the case of The North Star , the application for extension was not made in 1971. As a result, the film is now considered public domain in the United States. Because of the public domain, many copies on the market are heavily (and mostly poorly) edited and / or of extremely poor quality. Armored Attack is apparently still copyrighted.

Web links

Commons : The North Star (film)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f The North Star. In: American Film Institute website . Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  2. ^ Benjamin L. Alpers: Dictators, Democracy, and the American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s - 1950s . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2003, ISBN 978-0-8078-5416-7 , pp. 228 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  3. ↑ a b c d Bernard F. Dick: Hellman in Hollywood . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, New York 1982, ISBN 978-0-8386-3140-9 , pp. 99-107 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  4. ↑ a b c Dan Georgakas: HUAC and the Red Trilogy of World War II The North Star, Mission to Moscow, Ballad of Russia. In: New Politics. 2013, accessed on May 3, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Bob Herzberg: The Left Side of the Screen Communist and Left Wing Ideology in Hollywood 1929 - 2009 . McFarland & Company, Jefferson 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-4456-4 , pp. 147–151 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  6. ↑ a b c Andrea Passafiume: The North Star (1943) Articles. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f film grade 2. In: Homepage of the New York State Writers Institute. Retrieved May 3, 2016 ( scroll to the two sections about The North Star ; they are right behind each other).
  8. ↑ a b c d e Lou Lumenick: How Hollywood turned a pro-Soviet epic into Cold War Propaganda. In: New York Post. July 15, 2014, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  9. ^ A b Propaganda and Peasants: Aaron Copland's Score to THE NORTH STAR. In: Words of Note. April 2006, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Glenn Erickson: The North Star + Armored Attack! Savant Blu-ray Review. In: DVD Talk. July 15, 2014, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h Stuart Galbraith IV: Armored Attack / The North Star (Blu-ray). In: DVD Talk. July 15, 2014, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Bosley Crowther: 'The North Star,' Invasion Drama, With Walter Huston, Opens in Two Theaters Here - 'Claudia' at Music Hall . In: The New York Times . November 5, 1943 ( online [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  13. ^ The North Star (1943) Releases. In: AllMovie. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  14. ↑ a b The North Star (Armored Attack) (1943). In: Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  15. ↑ The North Star in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  16. ^ The North Star . In: Variety . October 13, 1943, p.  10 (English, online at Archive.org [accessed May 18, 2019]).
  17. ^ A b c George Chabot: Just Like Us (Not): The North Star. (No longer available online.) In: Epinions. March 22, 2006, archived from the original on May 3, 2016 ; accessed on May 3, 2016 .
  18. ^ A b c Michael Costello: The North Star (1943) Review by Michael Costello. In: AllMovie. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  19. ^ Larry Harnish: Los Angeles Prepares to Celebrate a Wartime Christmas. In: The Daily Mirror. December 19, 2013, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Top Grossers of the Season . In: Variety . January 5, 1944, p. 54 ( online [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  21. ^ The North Star. In: Chicago Reader. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  22. ↑ Jeffrey Kauffman: Armored Attack! Blu-ray Review Mother Russia or Soviet Menace, take your pick. In: Blu-ray.com. July 21, 2014, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  23. ↑ Brandon Peters: Armored Attack / The North Star (Blu-ray Review). In: why so blu? July 19, 2014, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  24. ↑ How Do I Find Movies in the Public Domain? In: Enoch Pratt free library. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  25. ↑ Public Domain. In: Peter Rodgers Organization. Retrieved on May 3, 2016 (English, note disclaimer; the list of films is in alphabetical order, scroll to North Star, The ).
  26. ^ The North Star (1943) Trivia. In: IMDb. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .