Quando a Neve Tornar a Cair

Days of Glory was the first relatively big budget film Jacques Tourneur was given opportunity to direct after success of his horror trilogy (Cat People, I walked with the Zombie and Leopard Man).

The particularity of this picture is that it was a debut film for all of it's cast of actors including Gregory Peck who later became one of Hollywood's major stars. Days of Glory is also one of those few openly pro-soviet films that were made in Hollywood during WW-2 when United States and Soviet Union were allies in fighting against Nazi Germany. But this fact doesn't diminish the quality of the film, though some propaganda elements are present in the story, which is about a group of Russian partisans fighting guerilla war against German Nazi troops in occupied Russia.

Overall, Days of Glory is an interesting WW-2 drama with a good story and a cast of interesting characters brought to life by a group of wonderful actors in their first starring role in a film. 7/10

A group of Soviet guerrillas operate out of a hideout behind enemy lines. Vladimir (Gregory Peck) is the heroic commander. He falls for the civilian dancer Nina Ivanova. A German soldier stumbles upon the hidden camp and is taken prisoner. Nina is horrified with Vladimir's willingness to kill a POW. When the soldier tries to escape, Nina is the one who kills him. Harden partisan Yelena is also in love with Vladimir but she is shot on a mission.

This is old fashion melodrama set in backdrop of the war. The Russians are still allies and there is a fair amount of propaganda work involved in this. The most notable is the theatrical debut of Peck. He's among several stage actors involved in this production. He's young, gaunt, and rather commanding. He enters the movie after the first fifteen minutes. Obviously, somebody would have made him the overwhelming star of the film if they knew his legendary career to come. As it is, he is the lead in an ensemble cast.

The Russian German war was the greatest battle ever fought and strangely has been ignored by Hollywood. This film, made when the Russians had yet to reach Berlin, was probably a propaganda piece of its time and suffers from some sugary Hollywood treatment. The appearance of a Moscow ballet dancer, and her inevitable love affair with the local guerilla leader, glamourises what was, in reality, a dirty hard war. Whilst we can respect this well-directed movie we can also ask why Hollywood has yet to record its tribute to the amazing determination of the Russian people who were not particularly well led yet overcame such enormous odds. Never mind "Saving Private Ryan" - what about Ivan's story, Mr Spielberg? The Cold War is over, the archives are open, the film is there to be made!

Vladimir (Gregory Peck) leads a group of guerrillas against the Nazi invaders in the forests of Russia. His small group is waiting for the order to attack. It finally comes with the message "The snow will fall".

The film is well acted with tense moments, eg, when the German soldier makes his escape with only Nina (Tamara Toumanova) in the hideout to defend herself alone against him. The group dynamics are well portrayed within this troupe of rebels and there is a very human element to the story. There are poignant scenes including Nina's silence when Mitya (Glenn Vernon) is taken by the Germans and the film has a memorable ending. It's patriotic but it's still a good film.

Pray silence, workers and peasants, for a "cast of new personalities" headed by the debut of "Mr Gregory Peck, distinguished actor on the New York stage".

A suitably solemn intro for the late Mr P, who supplies a characteristically cigar-store-Indianesque turn as the darkly handsome Russian dam-builder turned train-buster, heading a WW2 band of partisans (i.e., terrorists). His stern Soviet soul is melted only by a sultry ballerina who is stranded with the gang. Other members include a comic peasant double act, a learned Oxonian sidekick and a winsome teen brother and sister, one of whom ends on a Nazi noose (the wrong one, given the girl's saccharine performance).

This retrospectively hilarious and morally objectionable whitewashing of the most murderous tyranny in history- the communist USSR- fudges its politics like all the Hollywood "enemy of my enemy is my friend" wartime propaganda pieces. "Socialism" as the Peck character's creed is never mentioned. Inspiration for the partisans' efforts is made out to be no more than a worthy resentment of trespassers on their home ground, whether it's a dictatorship or not. (By the same logic Hollywood should now be shooting films justifying Iraqi guerilla resistance to the Americo-British occupation, but don't hold your breath.) The unpalatable truth that many in the western Soviet Union welcomed and collaborated with the Germans has to be evaded. In this flick, solidarity is absolute.

Apart from this hollowness at the core, the film is a decent string of shoot-em-ups in a convincingly icy studio landscape. The stage actors in the cast were and remained unfamiliar, making the thing seem a mite more authentic than, say, "For Whom the Bell Tolls". But Ms Toumanova, the producer's girlfriend at the time, conceives emotional acting as gazing into the remote distance with her lips slightly parted: the influence of Garbo was disastrous! And it would take Selznick and King Vidor to extract a full-blooded performance from Peck, in "Duel in the Sun". It's curious, incidentally, that Casey Robinson, writer and producer of this paean to Stalin, never got serious heat from the House Un-American Activities Committee after the war. Did he cut a deal?