A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the German invasion of June 1941.A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the German invasion of June 1941.A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the German invasion of June 1941.
- Nominated for 6 Oscars
- 6 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- Lillian Hellman
- Burt Beck(additional dialogue in new version) (uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis is one of the films deemed subversive" by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in October 1947, at the height of the "Red Scare" era typified by the tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The committee decided that, even though Russia was an ally of the US against Nazi Germany in World War II--when this film was made--the movie's sympathetic portrayal of Russian peasants and guerrillas who were fighting off Nazi forces was an endorsement of Communism.
- GoofsIn the opening moments of the film, Damian slides out from under a tractor that has rubber tires. Moments later the tractor is shown as having only steel wheels and no rubber tires.
- Quotes
Dr. von Harden: [while Dr. Kurin is holding a gun on Richter and von Harden] I do not like much of what I've done for the past nine years.
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: [after von Harden has given a blood transfusion from a Russian child to a German soldier] You do not like bleeding children?
Dr. von Harden: Did the boy die?
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: [Contemtuously] You knew he would die!
Dr. von Harden: They took too much blood. I'm sorry for that.
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: Yes, I nelieve you when you say you are sorry.
Dr. von Harden: I'm sorry for many things, Dr. Kurin. Most of all that this is not the world we used to know.
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: I've heard about you... civilized men who are sorry. This...
[Contemptuously gesturing toward Richter]
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: This kind is nothing! They will go when their bosses go, but men like you who have contempt for men like him! To me you are the real filth... men who do the work of Facists while they pretend to themselves that they are better than the beasts for whom they work... men who do murder while they laugh at them who order them to do it. It is men like you who have sold their people to men like him.
[He points to Richter and shoots him at point blank range]
Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin: You see, Dr. von Harden, you were wrong about many things. I AM a man who kills!
[He shoots von Harden at point blank range too]
- Alternate versionsIn 1956, the film was sold to television and re-edited under the title "Armored Attack." 25 minutes were removed, including all references to the word "comrade," and with the help of voice-over narrations, turned the alleged pro-Communist piece into anti-Communist territory.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Sprockets: Masters of Menace (1995)
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.
- nk_gillen
- Apr 26, 2004
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Armored Attack
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 48 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1