Fuoco a oriente

The North Star is at least as good a propaganda movie as much of Hollywood's wartime output and the astonishing range of talent that helped in its making makes it important rather than brilliant. While not impossible, it would be difficult for this collection of top drawer movie makers to devise a real dog of a production and even the most rabid anti-commie could not put this movie into the same bag as say 'Hitler, Dead of Alive' or 'The menace of the rising sun'. The North Star was multi Oscar nominated and even factoring in the mores of the period, this cannot be dismissed entirely.

Reading the posts on the movie here, it appears to me that some commentators really miss the whole point of US propaganda at the time and condemn The North Star out of context. These responses suggest to me that The North Star's punch has lost none of its original power.

In the early 1960's, when "The North Star" was syndicated to local TV stations, the film was re-cut and the title changed to "Armored Attack." Decades later, Lewis Milestone's classic has been re-released in its original form.

Other posters to this site have commented on the folk-peasant musicale that dominates the first half-hour of the film, so I'll dispense mention of it here. Suffice it to say, however, that from the first scene of violence -- a merciless daytime bombardment of civilians on a quiet Ukrainian country road -- the film gathers emotional strength. And when Anne Baxter, playing a schoolgirl, gazes for the first time upon the horrific vision of her school chums, now dead as the result of mechanized warfare, she states evenly, "We're not young anymore." She and a few others escape into the forest, emerging now and then to engage in hit-and-run sabotage against the Nazi aggressors. The film builds to a climax in which Russian partisans astride horses attempt to take back their village from the better- equipped Germans, giving director Milestone an opportunity to reprise the long tracking shots of approaching figures that became his trademark visual motif.

When Samuel Goldwyn produced "The North Star," he pulled out all the stops. He enlisted James Wong Howe to photograph, William Cameron Menzies to design the production, and Aaron Copland to write the background score. The cast, besides Baxter, includes Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Walter Huston, and, as the Nazi You Love to Hate, the legendary Erich Von Stroheim, as a German military doctor who compromises his professional oath through medical experimentation. Supplies of blood for the German wounded have dried up, so Dr. Von Stroheim orders the village children rounded up and brought to the local school, where he draws great quantities of blood from them -- so much so, that a few kids die from the process. Effective and highly dramatic, it certainly beats visions of the Hun boiling Belgian babies in oil.

This film was encouraged by the U.S. Government in the early days of WW II following the German invasion of Russia. It is a propaganda masterpiece centered around the former "freedoms" of prewar Soviet Russia life and the changes brought about abruptly by the invasion. Communism was not very popular in the United States even then, so this film was engineered to achieve widespread visibility in the early war years and to engender public approval for our "allies." At that it may be said to have achieved its purpose. Americans did not wish to be identified with any kind of comrade-bashing. Maybe subconsciously Americans desired Soviet victory so as to avoid a three-front War should the Russians have been subdued.

Historically, the Russians have been able to avoid loss of Moscow to invaders but doubtless this would not have been the case without all of the materials we sent them. Most do not know that over 6,000 fighter aircraft were sent to the Russians, nor do many Americans remember that the four or more B-29s that were badly damaged in combat over Japan and who later sought refuge in Russia, remember that these were seized by Stalin. They were never returned and in fact, they were copied rivet-for-rivet; screw-for-screw as the TU-4 and later turned into long range atomic bomb delivery aircraft whose purpose was to carry atomic weapons to the former ally, the United States. And this (the Cold War) was the only pay-back ever received for our shipments of billions of dollars of armaments. Still, our economic policies and GNP were the very things that brought about the demise of the Communist system.

With these facts in mind, it is entertaining to view this film and to identify the propaganda pronouncements and the truisms it contains.

Director Lewis Milestone's "The North Star" shouldn't be viewed in embarrassed silence: it's a snapshot of a bleak period in World War II when Hollywood catered to the government's policy of portraying the recently despised and then of necessity embraced Soviet government and its population as heroic, implacable anti-Nazis.

Look at the credits: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Two Walters (Huston and Brennan), Farley Granger, Dean Jagger and the aging but still chillingly evil Erich von Stroheim. And the screenplay - Lillian Hellman. Aaron Copland, the dean of American classical composers, provided a serviceable score that pales by comparison to the music that today is his contribution to the nation's music heritage.

"The North Star" tells the story, at any rate a story, of the resistance of Ukraine villagers to the thundering German blitzkrieg that brought incredible initial success following the launching of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. There is little historically accurate about either the portrayal of the German advance or the rapid mobilization of patriotic and death-before-submission villagers who love their land with a fierce and unquenchable patriotism. In reality very many in the invaded areas initially hoped the Germans would liberate them from malign Stalinism and only the occupier's stupid and counterproductive terrorism awakened a staunch resistance movement. But this didn't happen overnight.

The characters are largely one-dimensional and wooden, each playing out a politically correct vision of the real events. Children are slaughtered, German doctors engage in unorthodox practices, villagers rally around men and women of strength and character.

Obviously 1943 audiences, targets of American government efforts to persuade them of the necessity and justice of arming the Soviet Union though Lend/Lease (actually Give/Never Get Back Anything), had a different experience than I had when I last saw this film (this morning on cable TV while devouring bagels with cream cheese accompanied by ample juice libations). But "The North Star" is a window not only into the history of World War II film but also into the germination of the postwar search for Communists and fellow travelers in Hollywood. What brought kudos in '43 led to scary and destructive investigations in the late forties and early fifties. "The North Star" deserves some credit for careers later ruined, lives destroyed and the Blacklist.

Sensing that times and tides had changed, an atrociously butchered recut of "The Dark Star" appeared in 1953 as "Armored Attack," the same film de-Sovietized. They had to cut the original from 105 minutes to a mere 82 to "cleanse" the film of the Red Menace. It's worth watching the two versions sequentially. They showcase the impact of the Cold War on Hollywood.

It's hard to give a rating to "The North Star." Except for the joy of seeing Von Stroheim roll out his patented dark side this is an artificially tame war film in the age of "Saving Private Ryan" and "Platoon." But as a history lesson it well rewards the time spent viewing this page from a perilous time.

Please, if you're going to rent this film, respect the original and don't get the "colorized" version.

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.