Days of Glory | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jacques Tourneur |
Written by | Melchior Lengyel |
Screenplay by | Casey Robinson |
Produced by | Casey Robinson |
Starring | Tamara Toumanova Gregory Peck |
Cinematography | Tony Gaudio |
Edited by | Joseph Noriega |
Music by | Daniele Amfitheatrof Constantin Bakaleinikoff |
Production company | |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English German |
Budget | $958,000 [1] |
Days of Glory is a 1944 American film, directed by Jacques Tourneur, which tells the story of a group of Soviet guerrillas fighting back during the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia. It marked the film debut of Tamara Toumanova and Gregory Peck, as well as most of the other principal actors. It was also the first film produced by screen writer Casey Robinson, who in early January 1943 had been contracted by RKO Radio Pictures to write and produce the film under the working title This Is Russia. [2] Robinson and Toumanova married in 1944 [3] and divorced in 1955. [4] The film included the last screen appearance of actor Erford Gage, who subsequently entered the U.S. Army and was killed in action in 1945.
In the snowy Russian countryside of the early 1940s, Vladimir (Gregory Peck) leads a squad of nearly a dozen partisan fighters operating behind German lines. The group's routines are disrupted when Nina (Tamara Toumanova), a ballerina, is brought to their hideout after becoming separated from her troupe. She confesses she has neither handled a gun nor learned to fight, cook, mend, or clean. Vladimir favors sending her away. Later, a German soldier stumbles upon the group's lair but is captured. That night, he nearly escapes, but Nina shoots him, winning the approval of her new comrades. The next night, when the guerrillas carry out the sabotage of a German munitions train, Vladimir takes Nina along. The operation is a success. Yet although she and Vladimir are falling in love, Nina does not understand his ruthlessness. He explains that before the war he, as an engineer, had to destroy the very electric power plant he had helped build in order to keep the enemy from using it.
The couple's budding romance threatens the stability of the squad. At one point, when Vladimir must enlist someone to hand-deliver a coded message on Nazi troop strength to Soviet headquarters, he decides a woman courier would less likely be caught. He chooses the veteran Yelena (Maria Palmer), the only woman in the group besides Nina. So when Yelena's horse returns to their hideout with blood on the saddle, Nina then volunteers to take her place. Vladimir reluctantly accedes, sending the teen-aged boy Mitya (Glen Vernon) along with her. After Nina and Mitya reach headquarters and deliver Vladimir's information, she is given a coded reply to Vladimir: "The snow will fall tomorrow." This indicates that a massive Russian counterattack will begin the next day. Vladimir's superiors put him in charge of a merged partisan operation. Before the fighting begins, however, he orders Nina to take Mitya's younger sister, Olga (Dena Penn), to safety. Fighting bravely, the group's members are killed one by one, but Nina returns to Vladimir. As they fight on, he administers her the partisan oath of allegiance just before a German tank rolls atop their machine-gun nest and explodes.
Days of Glory is one of a handful of Hollywood films made during American participation in World War II to increase public support for the country's alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Such films, which would become the target of investigations during the Cold War by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, included Mission to Moscow , The North Star , Three Russian Girls , Counter-Attack , and Song of Russia . [5]
Parts of the film were shot in Cedar City, Utah. [6] : 287
Bosley Crowther faulted the screenwriter for "letting his story progress so fitfully and loading his characters with dialogue rather than stirring deeds." He said "the director failed to make the best of what he had," and "Gregory Peck comes recommended with a Gary Cooper angularity and a face somewhat like that modest gentleman's, but his acting is equally stiff." [7] The film recorded a loss of $593,000. [8]
Vernon L. Walker, James G. Stewart, and Roy Granville were nominated for the Oscar for Best Effects. [9]
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Tamara Toumanova was a Georgian-American prima ballerina and actress. A child of exiles in Paris after the Russian Revolution of 1917, she made her debut at the age of 10 at the children's ballet of the Paris Opera.
Olga Iosifovna Preobrajenska was a Russian ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet and a ballet instructor.
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The North Star is a 1943 pro-resistance war film starring Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim It was produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, written by Lillian Hellman and featured production design by William Cameron Menzies. The music was written by Aaron Copland, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and the cinematography by James Wong Howe. The film also marked the debut of Farley Granger.
Parachute Battalion is a 1941 war film directed by Leslie Goodwins and stars Robert Preston and Nancy Kelly. The supporting cast includes Edmond O'Brien, Harry Carey, and Buddy Ebsen.
Days of Glory may refer to:
Hitler's Children is a 1943 American black-and-white propaganda film made by RKO Radio Pictures. The film stars Tim Holt, Bonita Granville and Kent Smith and was directed by Edward Dmytryk from an adaptation by Emmet Lavery of Gregor Ziemer's book Education for Death.
Kenneth Casey Robinson was an American producer and director of mostly B movies and a screenwriter responsible for some of Bette Davis' most revered films. Film critic Richard Corliss once described him as "the master of the art – or craft – of adaptation."
Tamara Fyodorovna Makarova was a Soviet and Russian film actress and pedagogue. People's Artist of the USSR (1950) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1982).
Rainbow, is a 1944 Soviet war film directed by Mark Donskoy and written by Wanda Wasilewska based on her novel, Tęcza. The film depicts life in a German-occupied village in Ukraine from the viewpoint of the terrorized villagers.
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The Tuttles of Tahiti is a 1942 American adventure comedy romance film directed by Charles Vidor and starring Charles Laughton and Jon Hall. It was based on the novel No More Gas by James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff.
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Those Endearing Young Charms is a 1945 American comedy film directed by Lewis Allen and written by Edward Chodorov from his play of the same name and starring Robert Young, Laraine Day, Ann Harding, Bill Williams and Marc Cramer.
Glen Vernon was an American actor.
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