The North Star (1943)
The story begins in a village in Ukraine called "North Star", 21 June 1941. While the villagers enjoy a quiet summer day, young Kolya (Dana Andrews) and Marina Pavlova (Anne Baxter) are finalizing the plans for a walking tour bound for Kiev in the company of three friends , to celebrate the end of the school year. However, the next day, its tranquil journey is cut short by the German invasion of the USSR. While the Luftwaffe attacks on roads, columns German motorized go quickly to the village, so that the local men decided to escape to the mountains to form a guerrilla, while Kolya and Marina are desperately trying to return to their homes. Soon, the village is occupied by the Germans who decide to install an advanced military hospital in the same, under the command of Dr. von Harden (Erich Von Stroheim) using local children as blood donors for the soldiers forced German wounded.
During the period between 1942 and 1945, almost all the Hollywood studios developed an intense propaganda campaign in support of the Allied cause. In this context, there were dozens of films dedicated not only to extol the fight in front of U.S. troops, but the resistance in Europe against the Nazi invasion. Within this category falls The North Star, directed by renowned director Lewis Milestone , a filmmaker who had found in the gender war their best means of expression, especially since the completion of the acclaimed film adaptation of the famous novel by Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the front .
However, in this case, we can say that pricked Milestone bone. And of course, this can not acharcarse precisely the lack of resources, since the director had a cast full of first-rate actors, including the by then trendy Hollywood couple, Dana Andrews and Anne Baxter, as well as the prestigious Erich Von Stroheim in the role of German military doctor. However, the obvious weaknesses of the weak script Lillian Hellman wrote for the film, weighing down almost from the first minute of footage. For starters, because the venue chosen to present the Soviet peasants ready from the first day of invasion to fight the German occupiers is totally inadadecuado from the historical point of view.
Not surprisingly, Ukraine was one of the regions of the USSR, most had suffered the worst excesses of the Stalinist regime, some excesses embodied in the form of arrests and mass deportations to Siberia, and even death by starvation of tens of thousands of Ukrainians program due to forced agricultural expropriations ordered from Moscow. Therefore, when the invasion began, the majority of the population welcomed the Germans as liberators, even thousands of Ukrainians collaborated with the invading forces in the fight against the Red Army. Moreover, the story is told rather low rate, and most of the scenes set in the idyllic collective farm before the war are absolutely childish. So much so that in the 50's this film was marked by U.S. censorship as Soviet propaganda, showing a portrait too kind and idealized life in the USSR under the Communist regime.
Not surprisingly, Ukraine was one of the regions of the USSR, most had suffered the worst excesses of the Stalinist regime, some excesses embodied in the form of arrests and mass deportations to Siberia, and even death by starvation of tens of thousands of Ukrainians program due to forced agricultural expropriations ordered from Moscow. Therefore, when the invasion began, the majority of the population welcomed the Germans as liberators, even thousands of Ukrainians collaborated with the invading forces in the fight against the Red Army. Moreover, the story is told rather low rate, and most of the scenes set in the idyllic collective farm before the war are absolutely childish. So much so that in the 50's this film was marked by U.S. censorship as Soviet propaganda, showing a portrait too kind and idealized life in the USSR under the Communist regime.
Apart from this, at least we must recognize that the action scenes it shows the hand of Milestone. I especially liked the sequence in which Stukas bombed the village and in which a Russian aircraft attacked a column of German Pz-II, a well-filmed scenes, using a striking visual effects for the time. But beyond that, The North Star has little else to offer. A history of propaganda that has not withstood the test of all time. Interesting and curious movie fan, period.
Rating: 4 / 10
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