DAYS OF GLORY (director: Jacques Tourneur; screenwriter: Casey Robinson/story by Melchior Lengyel; cinematographer: Tony Gaudio; editor: Joseph Noriega; cast: Gregory Peck (Vladimir), Tamara Toumanova (Nina), Glenn Vernon (Mitya), Hugo Haas (Fedor), Alan Reed (Sasha), Igor Dolgoruki (Dimitri), Maria Palmer (Yelena), Dena Penn (Olga), Lowell Gilmore (Semyon), Edward L. Durst (Petrov); Runtime: 86; 1944)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
I expected this film, given its cliché subject matter, to be worst than it turned out. In fact, it had its moments in the snow of actually looking like pure cinema. Jacques Tourneur should be credited for making this wartime propaganda piece into an acceptable action film, shunning politics for a typical Hollywood wartime heroics and romance story. The film presented new and unknown actors, and only one of them, in his first motion picture, after appearing on the Broadway stage, Gregory Peck, had any kind of star quality. He played Vladimir, a Soviet commander of guerrillas during World War 11 fighting the Nazis. Tamara Toumanova plays Nina, a beautiful Russian ballerina entertaining the regular Russians troops during the German invasion of Russia in 1941, who gets lost and winds up in Peck's underground bunker. While there, she loses her pacifism, becomes a guerrilla, and romances Peck. In real life, this aspiring actress was a Russian ballerina, who married the producer/screenwriter Casey Robinson. Need I say more on how she got the part! But to her credit, she handled the role decently.
This film was a ringing tribute to our wartime allies, the noble Soviets. This would be a source of embarrassment in the coming years. The film has fun with the guerrillas calling each other comrade at every turn, and with glorifying the peasants and the efficiency of the Soviet Army.
Nothing much happens for the guerrillas while waiting in their bunker, except they spew out monologues about fighting for freedom and Mother Russia, Yelena ventures out to shoot a couple of Nazis riding by on a motorbike, the Samson-like Fedor offers some bunker humor, teenage brother and sister, Mitya and Olga, commit themselves fully to the cause and their commander, the guerrillas dynamite a German supply train, capture and then kill a Nazi when he tries to escape, and, to add a touch of comradeship, Semyon reads courageous stories to the men. He is second in command, the intellectual among them; Peck in peace time was an engineer, but now he destroys the things he used to build and is a starry-eyed patriot (Communist).
What the guerrillas are waiting for in their bunker is for important orders to come down from Russian headquarters, telling them they will be part of the attack on the Nazis.
The film predictably plods along to its climax, as Nina delivers a message to the Russian general in the field and he gives her a coded message, which is the one Peck was waiting for, as he gets just as excited about the message as he does about holding Nina in his arms.
Mitya becomes a hero, giving up his life so that the Nazis won't find Peck. Later on, when the Russians counter-attack and begin pushing the Germans out of their homeland, Petrov gallantly blows up a German tank while giving up his life to save the other guerrillas.
The film failed miserably with the critics and at the box office, but it wasn't that bad...it even had a certain corny charm to it that some might find appealing.
REVIEWED ON 9/1/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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