MovieChat Forums > The North Star (1944) Discussion > What a load of Commie crap!

What a load of Commie crap!

posted 14 years ago by dumpington
8 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this one on The Turner Network's movie channel, and it's amazing how blatantly & recklessly leftist it is!

Yes, yes, I know all about then-President Franklin Roosevelt urging Hollywood to make a film portraying the Soviet Union in a positive light. After all, we were sending millions of dollars worth of supplies to our Russian allies to fight Hitler with, and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

But this thing has aged remarkably badly! I mean, even in Russia today they freely acknowledge that Joseph Stalin was one of the biggest mass-murderers of all time, eclipsed only by China's Mao. But you certainly wouldn't know that watching this tripe!

In this one, Stalin's "show trials" in which his secret police arrested, tortured, and then forced the accused into making ridiculous public confessions before ending their suffering with a bullet to the head (or incercertaion in the gulag), is made to appear perfectly reasonable! It's sick!

Stalin himself comes across as "Barack Obama" (circa January 2009), widely loved and universally admired. Even Soviet Russia's inexcusable attack on tiny Finland ("The Winter War" of 1939-40) is shown to have been necessary because Finnish President Mannerheim was a "friend of Hitler." (According to this abomination of a film, the right thing for Finland to have done after Russia's invasion would have been to immediately surrender to the U.S.S.R., as did tiny Lithuania, Latvia, & Estonia!)

Seriously, despite its excellent production values, "The North Star" is an should be remembered as an embarrassing Soviet propaganda produced and released here in the United States by Warner Brothers. It's really no different than the pro-Nazi film, "Triumph of the Will," only in some ways, even cruder!

[–] dumpington 14 years ago

Ooops!

It's just dawned on me that I'm confusing this film with a different "Soviet-friendly" film from the early 1940's: "Mission to Moscow!"

This one wasn't anywhere near as bad as that one!

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

To FordMadoxFordMadox - until your post, I had not realized Lilian Helman had written this stinking turd of a film. What astonishes me is that she had the nerve to criticize William Wyler for making Mrs. Miniver. That, at least, was a good film.

[–] baran_erik 7 years ago

Then why don't you delete your original, typically misinformed, repugnantcan tripe?

Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

As the OP points out, this film is pure, unadulterated tripe. But that is what propaganda tends to degenerate into, and this film is nothing but shameless propaganda. The essential message is that life in the Soviet Union was beautiful and happy, which was so far from the case that this film is little more than a despicable lie. Granted, most films made in that period that touched upon the contemporary international situation were propaganda to one degree or another. Even a film as respected as Casablanca contained blatant propaganda (if you've never noticed, pay attention next time - you couldn't miss). Also Mrs. Minniver is little more than a well-made propaganda piece.

Obviously the US had valid reasons for wishing to make the soviet regime appear as sympatheic as possible, as we were fighting with them and sending them plenty of arms and goods. International relations makes strange bedfellows and we were not in a position at that time to pick and choose. Also, our volte face after 1945 (where we had suddenly to support Germany and demonize the Soviet Union) was even more incredible.

What is most absurd to the viewer is the way the Ukrainian peasants are portrayed - as if it were like Iowa, but only will funny costumes and odd phony accents (used by some of the actors at least - Dana Andrews should have not even attempted it). Anybody who has even a supercial knowledge of the history of that period will know how patently absurd the portrayal is. The Ukrainian heartland had been so badly devastated in the decade prior to WWII that some at first even welcomed their "liberation" from the Soviet Union, until they realized that the Nazi's were on a mission of extermination.

In short, it was an utterly ridiculous film.

[–] franklinlj 10 years ago

Casablanca and Mrs Miniver are propaganda films, no doubt.

I will say this: 'propaganda' does not have to mean 'lies'. But If I wanted to convince a skeptic, I would not be mentioning this film.

Incidentally, Triumph of the Will had masterly camera work. This is just so-so.

[–] irvberg2002 8 years ago

dumpington, I agree with all you say, with one exception. You refer to the accused in Stalin's notorious show trials in a sympathetic light, but those "accused" were all part of the same Leninist gang that perpetrated the Bolshevik terror after their seizure of power, murdering hundreds of thousands, and many of them participated in the hideous rural "collectivization" of the peasantry, which entailed the deaths of millions. Their own victimization by Stalin constitutes more an irony than anything else. Indeed, perhaps the most prominent of them, Bukharin, begged Stalin to spare his life so that he could continue to serve Stalin. (See pages 410-419 of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago) Of course, to no avail.