We present an overview of the best war films for the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory. The Second World War, which contained several theaters of military operations colossal in importance and bloodshed, received its reflection in the world and domestic cinema right during the years of struggle, not for life, but for death, of the three allied countries in the anti-Hitler coalition with the powers of the Nazi-imperialist Axis. And the first great family of films, which we recommend to include in your audience menu in the year of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Great Patriotic War, will be made up of pictures that appeared on the screens right then – during the war years.
The Invaders (1941)
directed by Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger
In the center of this tape of the famous director’s duet of British masters of the cinema screen is the story of a small invasion of the British dominion of Canada by a group of German saboteurs from a bombed submarine. Their goal is to get to the neutral, at that time, United States of America (remember that only after the Pearl Harbor disaster in December 1941, the United States declared war not only on Japan, but also on its ally Nazi Germany). On the way of the German invaders (in the American box office this tape was called The Invaders) there will be different inhabitants of the Canadian wilderness. Some of them will even assist the enemy, someone misled will die, and someone will unexpectedly become a brave pursuer of lawless saboteurs. The image of one of these heroes, an eccentric English travel writer, was created on the screen by the outstanding British actor Leslie Howard, whom Goebbels considered his most dangerous opponent in the sense of anti-Nazi propaganda, and, as some believe, it was he who gave the order to shoot down the plane with the actor over neutral Spain during the World War on June 1, 1943.
In the acting ensemble “The Invaders’s 49th parallel” (the geographical coordinates of the place of events became the title of the film), the greatest English theater and cinema actor Laurence Olivier, the Canadian Raymond Massey, already Oscar-winning by that time, and the most popular Austrian actor Anton Walbrook, who left Nazi Germany, also shone – the greatest English theater and cinema actor, Laurence Olivier, already Oscar-winning Canadian Raymond Massey, and the most popular Austrian actor Anton Walbrook, who left Nazi Germany. The cameraman of the tape was Frederick Young, the future winner of three Oscars for shooting David Lin’s epic film scenes. It should also be noted that one of the co-authors of the tape, Emerick Pressburger, was deservedly awarded the Academy Award for Best Original screenplay in 1943.
In Which We Serve (1942)
directed by Noel Coward and David Lean
Released in the Soviet box office, a little over a year after the British premiere in September 1942, the film was called “The Tale of One Ship.” And this is a really exciting film news, combining a military drama with small intersperses of melodramatic episodes, based on the true story of the destroyer Kelly, who participated in the defense of the island of Crete from the Nazis. The courage does not leave the British sailors even after their ship is sunk by a German torpedo.
With flashbacks, we learn the history of the crew in which the brave sailors and officers of the fleet served. In the role of the commander of the Kinross ship (the prototype of which was the legendary Lord Mountbaten, the great-uncle of the current British monarch), the director and screenwriter of the tape, the most popular English playwright and actor Noel Coward, starred. And his partners in the film were such famous masters of the screen as Bernard Miles, Oscar-winning John Mills (grandfather of the frontman of the psychedelic indie rock band Kula Shaker – Crispian Mills), Joyce Carey and the very young then Richard Attenborough (in the future one of the most famous British filmmakers of the second half of the XX century, the creator of the epic what a wonderful war!”, “The Bridge is too far away”, “Gandhi”, etc.).
I remember The Wackiest Ship in the Army, another war film about naval adventures, released already in 1960 and also based on real events.
Sahara (1943)
directed by Zoltan Korda
This Hollywood film, which was released in November 1943, can be called (as the creators of the picture themselves recognized) a creative adaptation of the plot of the first Soviet eastern “Thirteen”, shot by Mikhail Romm in 1935. And the action of this screen story takes place in North Africa in the Tobruk area in June 1942, when, under the leadership of the famous German commander Erwin Rommel, his tank corps tried to crush the troops of our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition in the Libyan desert. In the center of the plot “Somewhere in the Sahara” are the actions of the crew of one American tank, the image of whose commander, Sergeant Joe Gunn, was created on the screen by Humphrey Bogart, recognized by the American Film Institute as the best actor in the history of American cinema.
A year earlier, Bogart starred in the legendary “Casablanca”, still considered one of the greatest creations of Hollywood. In that tape, the action also took place in North Africa (as the title of the film emphasized), but there was a duel with Nazi agents behind the front line, and here the enemy was obvious. And even, in a seemingly desperate situation, it was necessary not to lose the presence of mind and thereby overcome the enemy.
The Battle Of Russia (1943)
directed by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak
This uplifting film, which glorified the valor and courage of the soldiers of the Country of the Soviets, was released in a dubbed version on Soviet screens on February 23, 1944, just three months after the American premiere. He played a significant role in consolidating in the public consciousness of America the colossal role played by the Soviet Union in the fight against the common enemy of the allied countries. Three-time Oscar-winner Frank Capra and his film assistant Anatole Litvak (who began his film career in post-revolutionary Petrograd) masterfully created a film narrative from Soviet newsreels of the war and fragments of patriotic tapes of the pre-war period (“Peter the Great”, “Alexander Nevsky”, etc.), demonstrating the great achievements of a mysterious country that was trying to bring to reality utopian dreams and the fortitude that helped the defenders of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad defend their fatherland from the fascist hordes.
It should also be noted that Dmitry Temkin, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, a four-time Oscar winner and creator of soundtracks for such legendary westerns as Duel under the Sun, Exactly at Noon, Rio Bravo, Fort Alamo, was responsible for the musical design of the tape, using his original music and Tchaikovsky’s musical themes and many others.
Rainbow (1943)
directed by Mark Donskoy
The creation of this film, which was released in January 1944, can also be likened to a feat. The transfer to the screen of the story described by the Polish writer Wanda Vasilevskaya in the novel of the same name required the impossible – to recreate the winter landscapes of one of the Ukrainian villages in Ashgabat, where the Kiev film Studio was evacuated, where the old men, women and children who stayed in it are being bullied, the “winners” – soldiers of the Wehrmacht.They can kill a teenager and forbid his mother to bury his body in the ground. But the mother secretly crawls up to him at night to take a last look at her son. Elena Tyapkina, who lived this role on the screen shortly before the start of filming, received a funeral for her only son Gleb, but, overcoming grief, created an unforgettable image of her heroine. Under the great impression of watching this tape, the American ambassador in Moscow, Harriman, recommended watching it to US President Franklin Roosevelt.
On March 14, 1944, immediately after a special screening at the White House, Roosevelt telegraphed his friend, the ambassador: that in the film he had just seen, everything was “beautifully and dramatically presented that it required little translation” (“so beautifully and dramatically shown that almost no translation is required”). And three months later, “Rainbow” was released in the United States.
Ivan Nikulin – The Russian Sailor (1944)
directed by Igor Savchenko
Leonid Solovyov entered the history of Russian literature as the creator of the famous dilogy about Khoja Nasreddin, but during the Great Patriotic War, as a military journalist, he described the events of front-line everyday life, also creating a story that served as the basis for this wonderful and now undeserved forgotten film. The heroes of The Heroes of the tape are quite real and at the same time resemble the characters of Russian fairy tales, who did not lose their spirit in battles with various miracle-yudas and often won with their ingenuity.
So the image of The Hero’s main character, his namesake, Ivan Pereverzev (who in the future played Admiral Ushakov in the epic dilogy about the Russian naval commander) on the screen resembles an epic character. And Zakhar Fomichev, whose screen avatar was one of the most beloved actors of Soviet cinema of the pre-war era, Boris Chirkov, embodies another irreplaceable quality for victory – to act with cunning, without risking the lives of his front-line comrades in vain. Stepan Kayukov, Zoya Fedorova, Vsevolod Sanaev played wonderful roles in this, rare for those years, color tape. And quite unexpectedly, the talent of the genius of the comic episode of Erast Pavlovich Garin (the king from the legendary Lenfilm Cinderella filmed a little later) was revealed here. Released in the early spring of the victorious 1945, this tape was also remembered by the audience with a wonderful song about the defenders of Sevastopol, created by Sergei Potocki based on the poems of Alexei Surkov “On the branches of a wounded poplar.”
Watch online movie Ivan Nikulin – the Russian sailor (1944) (colorized version)
Stariway To Heaven (1945)
directed by Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger
One of the most unusual recreations in the world cinema of the otherworld, where the dead on the battlefields, in the air and at sea, soldiers and officers fall. At the center of this dramatic story, filled with bizarre fiction, is the power of love, which can rescue a loved one even from the shackles of death. We will not, perhaps, reveal the plot of the film, which takes viewers to the last, if not hours, then days of the war, The Hero of which was played by Kim Hunter and David Niven.
By the way, already in 1940, Niven, who by that time had made a stellar career in Hollywood, stood up for Albion and even received praise from Winston Churchill, who then became Prime Minister:
“Young man, you did the right thing by giving up your film career to fight for your country. Mind you, if you didn’t, it would be mean.”
The Hero on the screen was The Hero in real life, ending the war as a colonel of British commandos.
And in the next “magnificent seven” we will remember the tapes of the Soviet screen masters, in which the image of the Great Patriotic War is memorably recreated.
