MovieChat Forums > The North Star (1944) Discussion > Every day's a picnic at the commune!

Every day's a picnic at the commune!

posted 17 years ago by blackcat-77
9 replies | jump to latest

Sure this is propaganda, but it's first-rate propaganda with quality acting and good production values. I compare this film to "Flying Tigers" in that it seeks to create a good impression of our allies with the American people. It must have been an especially difficult job considering that all through the 20s and 30s the Red Menace had been a common theme. It's also interesting to compare this film to the Russian classic "Alexander Nevsky." I guess the Soviet film makers knew they couldn't pass off this rose-colored view of life on the commune to the people who lived it every day so they had to glamorize their past and not their present. This film is available from Netflix and the version they have is a pretty clean transfer.

[–] shotgunnergauge5150 17 years ago

Thank you for that info.

"Do not let thorns in your side become nails in your coffin".-Bruce Richard Bundy 10/2006

[–] christcrucified 17 years ago

thanks for the heads up. it's on local tv in chicago, right now, and I'm freaking out a little.

[–] rick04 14 years ago

It's important to note that this is American propaganda (made at the behest of FDR's administration)--not a product of the Soviet film industry--intended to get US opinion behind our wartime ally, the Soviet Union. That effort required humanizing a nation whose people we had demonized for 25 years before the WW2 began. Of course, war does make strange bedfellows. How better to show that the Soviets were all just home and hearth folks like all Americans than to show how at home they all would have been in the Midwest?

Personally, notwithstanding the Oscar nominations the film received, I found The North Star's music intrusive and unimaginative, the simple folks' bursting into song and dance formulaic, the hurried story hackneyed, and the direction far from creative. On the other hand, I thought "Nevsky" was brilliantly imaginative and fresh. Perhaps, the need to get this movie out quickly led to many compromises in its production.

[–] DrMorbius 14 years ago

i loved the whole film and glad i got to see it before i go!

[–] trupodur 14 years ago

I share your opinion on TNS vs. Nevsky.
Besides I don't think that blackcat-77's reasons for comparing these two movies make much sense. Soviet moviemakers couldn't glamourize country life under Stalin's regime? Gimme a break! I'd say majority of popular prewar Russian movies are dedicated precisely to this task. "Volga-Volga", "Veselye Rebyata", "Traktoristy" to name a few (and I supect that TNS' makers were inspired by Volga-Volga's style when making the first part).

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] atheismyes 14 years ago

Stalinist propaganda!

[–] LCShackley 14 years ago

I think that the difference is this:

The Russians who made NEVSKY really believed in their subject matter.

The Americans who made NORTH STAR did NOT feel the same way. They knew they were doing a whitewash job on a former enemy, very much like the media in the novel 1984.

[–] 14 years ago

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