V boy idut odni 'stariki'

This movie includes all! You can find here Romance, History and a bit of Comedy. Movie is full off great music which is very popular in all countries in East of Europe, this songs are live in the hearts of million peoples across the Europe. The main hero of this film is Bogdan Titarenko(Leonid Bykov). Very talented and brave leader of "Singing group", he must look after some new cadets and fight together with them against the planes of Fascist Germany. Near to the Bogdan always are his friends, they all are from different parts of the country, but they all became real brothers. Very touching part of film is love feeling between Romeo and Masha. They both were pilots and their destinies were to live in sky together and die there, war took them to life's like a victim of eternal love. I think this movie about the greatest feeling in the world – about love, love to the native land, love between two people, love between friends and love to all cinema the greatest actor and director all over the world – Leonid Bykov….

for the music. for the nuances of story. for the human map of Soviet Union. for the status of image of essence of friendship, love, sacrifice and courage. for the humor. and for the force to give, after forty decades, a fresh story, an admirable cast. each of that details does it more than entertainment's support. it is almost a testimony about great themes of life in a delicate-precise manner. a film about courage and about choices. few memorable scenes. and splendid music. a film about war. exploring its nuances in inspired manner. because, like many films from Soviet Union, the war is the lead actor. so, the sides of it are subjects who defines the existences, choices, sacrifices, emotions and reflections of the other characters. a film who must see. for the music, for the acting, for the script, for the fragments from old documentaries. but, more important, maybe, for the atmosphere.

Decent ww2 film with good acting and captures the period. However I have watched Soviet war movies with much better action scenes with more authentic aircraft not post war trainers. And using newsreel battle footage instead of filmed stuntwork is cheap and weird given they use much better staged scenes in many of their ww2 films. They have the budget for this in 1974. I watch war movies mainly for the action not talking scenes. To give the filmmaker credit he offered sentimental memories and a believable atmosphere with funny moments. I have watched much more engrossing war movies than this however.

Hi !

This is very interesting WWII fighter pilots' film in international standard!

This fighter wing has own music band played by fighter pilots themselves and the "nose art" of the plane of wing leader is "music score".

Director and main actor, Leonid Bukov is one of very impressive actor in Soviet union 1960-70s era movies who usually took rolls of ordinary citizen or soldier in several films. He never took a roll of famous red army general.

Most of air battle scenes were taken from documentary films. This films focus on a life and death, happy time and sad time, of pilots themselves, and their love with lovely female pilots.

Also I feel special Ukrainian feeling in this film.(This film was made by Ukrainian movie studio during Soviet era)

Beside this one, another Soviet Union Fighter pilot film "Baltiskoe Nyebo" (means, Baltic Sky) is also impressive in different way which focus on the various relations between fighter pilots and citizens of Leningrad under German army's Blockade.

This is my favorite film about the Great Patriotic War. First, the plot is based on the stories of veterans, many episodes took place in fact at different stages of the war. In addition, most of the characters have real prototypes. The plot masterfully includes both comic and funny moments, as well as moments when tears appear on their own. Secondly, the cast is incredible, when you watch them, you believe them unconditionally. Third, the music is an important part of the film, and the song "Smuglyanka" has long been popular. In short, this is one of the best films about the war.