The North Star (1943 film)

Infobox Film
name = The North Star


image_size =
caption =
director = Lewis Milestone
producer = Samuel Goldwyn
William Cameron Menzies (exec.)
writer = Lillian Hellman (story and screenplay)
narrator =
starring = Anne Baxter
Dana Andrews
Walter Huston
Walter Brennan
Erich von Stroheim
music = Aaron Copland
cinematography = James Wong Howe
editing =
distributor = RKO Radio Pictures
released = 4 November 1943
runtime = 108 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0036217

"The North Star" (also known as "Armored Attack" in the US) is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim. The music was written by Aaron Copland, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe. The film also marked the debut of Farley Granger.

The film is about the resistance of the "heroic" villagers, through guerrilla tactics, against the evil German invaders of the Ukraine.

Though the picture was a major studio release, it was an unabashedly pro-Soviet propaganda film. The House Committee on Un-American Activities would later cite "The North Star" as one of the three noted examples of pro-Soviet works made by Hollywood, the other two being Warner Brothers' "Mission to Moscow" (1943) and MGM's "Song of Russia" (1944). Similar U.S. World War II movies are RKO Radio Pictures's "Days of Glory" on Russian resistance in the Tula Oblast and MGM's "Dragon Seed" on Chinese efforts against the Japanese occupation.

Criticism

This movie is so filled with official Soviet propaganda about collective farms that British historian Robert Conquest, a member of the British Foreign Office, called it, "a travesty greater than could have been shown on Soviet screens to audiences used to lies, but experienced in this particular matter [collective farm conditions] to a degree requiring at least a minimum of restraint.""The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine," Conquest, page 321, Oxford Press, 1986; see Chapter 17 for detailed information on the efforts of pro-Soviet Westerns to help the regime cover up the true conditions on the collective farms.]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0036217|title=The North Star