The North Star (1943) Made at the request of President Roosevelt, this fictional Sam Goldwyn independent production recreates the Soviet side of WWII by taking us into the lives of a small town family, apparently Ukrainian. The cast is stellar, with writing by Lillian Hellman, music by Aaron Copland, lyrics by Ira Gershwin (it's very musical)...you get the idea? This propaganda film pulled no punches. But it's troubled in a lot of ways, not the least of which is its goody-goody view of Russian life that makes Russian propaganda look accurate. Dana Andrews is a breath of fresh air, but really, do they have to have him singing and playing the balalaika while walking a country road? Smiling? But in uniform, which is key. Luckily, Andrews is thoroughly great in the rest of the film. But I decided to watch this film for another reason: James Wong Howe. Yes, his cinematography is quite stunning, and virtuosic through a range of styles. Much of the first part of the film is in a kind of brightly lit quasi-documentary style, with lots of hearty happy faces, all tightly framed and with some key moving camera to keep it real. Some of the family scenes inside are filmed with beautiful rich contrast. But what a quirky film in so many ways. It's heroic, for sure. When it gets to the war parts it's gripping and much more realistic. But there is consistent music, which was a surprise. Even Walter Brennan sings. But the bulk of the film is the war scenes, and they are impressive. Most of the film was shot at the Samuel Goldwyn studios, and it feels convincing. Walter Huston is commanding, and good old Erich von Stroheim takes on an ugly role with gusto. Lewis Milestone directs much of this mishmash with a feeling of a 1936 film, the characters simple and overly idealized as if fighting the Depression with dignity. The early war scenes (many shot with decent back projection) save the film, but in a way they are meant to be context for the human dramas of the town folk. It is when the war enters the village that the elements all meet and the movie rises up. By the end, it is the obvious writing that pulls the movie down and the stunning photograrphy that saves it.

A slew of Hollywood studio regulars (Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, Farley Granger, Dean Jagger) do an absolutely terrible job convincing us that they're rural Russians in this bit of WWII propaganda from 1943. The film details what happens when this peaceful Russian community is invaded by Nazis. The younger folk, who are traveling to a larger city for a holiday, find themselves thrown into combat on the road, while the villagers deal with the ransacking of their homes. The film laments the loss of innocence and the necessity for war, but the way it goes about it is nearly ridiculous by today's standards. The first hour or so of the film shows us what life for a typical Russian peasant is like, which according to this film includes breaking into song and dance every five minutes no matter what you're doing and celebrating the joys of being Russian. I've seen musicals that don't have as much music in them as this movie.Still, much can be forgiven in these studio products of the war years, since their first goal was to keep up morale and only secondarily cared at all about the art of actual film making. They're interesting in the context of film's place in popular culture but they're not interesting films, if that makes any sense."The North Star" was amazingly nominated for six Academy Awards when it comes across today as a B movie, and not even a very good one at that. Lillian Hellman, of all people, won her second and last nomination for the film's original screenplay, while it racked up five nominations in the technical categories of b&w art direction, b&w cinematography, dramatic or comedy score, sound recording, and special effects.Grade: C+

Skip the first half of rural fun and games. Substitute Hungarians v Russians, or Armenians v Turks, or any other convenient pair of victims and aggressors for Ukrainians v Germans. Then settle down to enjoy a well-acted, well-directed, gripping and moving 100% fictional story. The narrative unwinds in a manner far superior to patriotic junk like Saving Private Ryan. The trajectory of the one is curiously the reverse of the other. SPR starts dramatically, but slowly stutters to a bathetic finale. NS starts boringly, but accelerates towards a most compelling end. On balance, SPR is pure and painful garbage. Making allowances for its date, this isn't.I didn't pick up what North Star stands for.. Was that the name of the village ? Odd name, if so. Nevertheless I was well entertained by this film. It stands the test.

This is a really good example of a Hollywood propaganda film based on falsehoods about WW II. Set in Ukraine in 1941. The movie was released in the US in 1943. According to this movie, Ukrainians were a cheerful happy people serving the state before the evil Nazis show up to liberate them from Bolshevism. Nazi planes attacked citizens in horse drawn carriages and even children running in the street. One of the funniest scenes to me is Ukrainians burning down their own homes and the Nazis putting out the fires. There is a chain smoking colonel (it was illegal for a German in uniform to smoke in public and smoking was strongly discouraged even in private). Completely draining the blood from Ukrainian children to use in blood transfusions (Germans would not have used blood from non-Germans in transfusions to Germans. It was viewed as a defilement of the blood.) Here is some real history.The director of this movie, Lewis Milestone was a Jew born in Russia as Lev Milstein. The writer, Lillian Hellman was Jewish and black-listed in the 1950's for being a communist. Lillian's 2nd husband, Dashiell Hammett was also black-listed as a communist and imprisoned for contempt of court for refusing to given information to the court concerning the funding of men that wanted to overthrow the US by force and violence.The Ukrainians struggled for independence in 1917 after the Bolsheviks killed the Tsar and seized Russia. Stalin killed 7 million Ukrainians in 1928-29 with a man-made famine called Holodomor. The truth is many Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis and saw them as their liberators. Germans were never at war against Ukrainians or even Russians despite WW II being called in Russia as "the Great Patriotic War." The Great Patriotic War is Soviet propaganda which is still repeated today. The Germans were at war against Bolshevism (which today would be called globalism/Cultural Marxism/International banking). There were also many Russians who refused to fight for Stalin. Refusing to fight would have got you shot or sent to the gulags. Thus, during just the first few months of the German advance towards Moscow 650,000 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner. Says a lot when so many surrender to the Germans rather than die for Stalin. The Waffen SS, on the other hand, would fight to the death.It was in 1942 that the Soviet Union's top propagandist, a Jew named Ilya Ehrenburg started a hate program against Germans. It was Ilya Ehrenburg that first made the claim that 6 million Jews had died in Nazi gas chambers. In a leaflet called "Kill" he wrote: "The Germans are not human beings. From now on, the word 'German' is the most horrible curse. From now on, the word 'German' strikes us to the quick. We have nothing to discuss. We will not get excited. We will kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day ... If you cannot kill a German with a bullet, then kill him with your bayonet. If your part of the front is quiet and there is no fighting, then kill a German in the meantime ... If you have already killed a German, then kill another one - there is nothing more amusing to us than a heap of German corpses. Don't count the days, don't count the kilometers. Count only one thing: the number of Germans you have killed. Kill the Germans! ... - Kill the Germans! Kill!"