User Reviews

This tribute to Russian resistance in World War II gave Gregory Peck his opportunity for a starring film screen debut. No walk-ons, or bit parts are in Peck's career resume. He was billed a star from the beginning.

Not that Days of Glory was the greatest of debuts. In fact it was only in his second film, The Keys of the Kingdom for which he got his first Oscar nomination that made him a big star. Still Peck as the stoic and brooding Russian peasant resistance leader certainly had star quality written all over him.

Now that the Cold War is over we can appreciate the Russian contribution to defeating Nazism without getting hung up over Communism. The Russians took a quick study in what defeated Napoleon and applied those lessons to World War II. Where you see the German Army in the Ukraine in Days of Glory is roughly how far they advanced into the Soviet Union. Those partisans that Peck heads are on the cutting edge as factories are being transported and rebuilt in the Urals and east of same and the Red Army is being reorganized. Joe Stalin is also looking a military leadership team to beat the Nazis.

The Russian people took a tremendous toll and it was the great worry of both Roosevelt and Churchill up to the Allied invasion of Normandy that Stalin might just make a separate peace. If he had the world would be very different.

Peck's love interest was dancer Tamara Toumanova who plays a dancer caught up in the partisan movement. As an actress she's a great dancer, she's seen to better advantage in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain where she concentrates on dancing.

Days of Glory did get an Oscar nomination for Special Effects, but despite that it's essentially an A picture from a B picture studio, RKO. Still it's not a bad last stand story and a decent enough debut for Gregory Peck.

Patriotic Hollywood movie about a Soviet Union guerrilla when Russia was invaded by the ruthless Nazis ; subsequently , brave Guerrilleros fighting back . And presenting the motion picture debut of a cast of new personalities. The flick is set during Nazi onslaught , on June 22, 1941, the Fuehrer sent his war machine , an armored attack crashing across the frontiers of the USSR , unleashing a furious Blitzkrieg. The Fuehrer,-known his hatred for Bolshevism-, described the assault on Russia as a crusade against communism, but he obviously was motived by a need for wheat, oil, and mineral supplies to enable him to defy the British blockade. This is a flag-waving and propaganda film but at the time US and USSR were allied , it deals about some idyllic Soviet people . As their peaceful existence is brutally interrupted when they are suddenly attacked by German planes, in the first wave of the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union. As most of the men flee to the hills to form a guerrilla unit . The first part describes life of a little rebel group led by Vladimir (Gregory Peck) who falls for Ballerina Nina (Tamara Toumanova) , all of them are good people (Alan Reed , Maria Palmer ,Lowell Gilmore , Glen Verdon , Hugo Haas) who bravely fight against the violent encroachment . There happens the Nazi invasion and they're surrounded and bombed . By the way , protagonist Peck making the romantic interludes with Tamara Toumanova playing a Catholic Ballerina from Bolshoi who joins the godless guerrilla . The second part is quite starkly moving developing account of deeds that befall about the freedom fighters and when they go into action , including impressive battles . Burning with Love and Hate! A rolling wall of hell that couldn't be stopped... A handful of men who had to stop it!

The interesting and quite beautifully made film with implecable credits results to be a gripping war story dealing with the Germans overrunning the Eastern Russia with valiant , courageous villagers facing on Nazis and starring Gregory Peck/Vladimir almost single-handely battling as well as resisting the brutal enemy .This picture has presented a cast of new personalities starring , cautioning as opening credits , as closing credits . Peck making his debut as a Russian guerrilla in one of these propagandist WWII tributes to Soviet Allies which caused much embarrassment after that . In addition , there was a clutch of newcomer players . Casey Robinson's thought-provoking screenplay , based on an original story by Melchior Lengyel , is much more concerned with their doggedly upright , gallant resistence under siege than with any jingoist or political purpose . This unnerving epic depicts the horror war as Nazi atrocities and as the resistance fighters roam the Russian countryside attacking during the cruel invasion . Although melodramatic moments in overall effects, also has moments of astounding power with some overwhelming sequences. No one had much to tell for the movie by the time , but it is surprisingly convincing , intriguing , thrilling and sober . The picture has great actors , being film debut of Gregory Peck, Alan Reed ; the credits specify all in the credited cast were making their screen debuts , although Maria Palmer, Hugo Haas and Tamara Toumanova appeared in films in earlier years . This ¨Days of Glory¨ bears remarkable resemblance to ¨The North Star¨ (1943) by Lewis Milestone with prestigious actors as Walter Huston , Dana Andrews, Farley Granger , Anne Baxter, Erich Von Stroheim as usual official Nazi, Dean Jagger, among them . Cinematography is well supplied by Tony Gaudio , being filmed in Cedar City, Utah, and RKO Studios , Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California . As well as atmospheric and evocative score by Daniele Amfitheatrof .

The motion picture was professionally directed by Jacques Tourneaur , though the film never rises above tub-thumping , and being unforced and natural , at times .Tourneur directed all kinds of genres and he was an expert on terror cinema (Cat people , Leopard man, I walked with a Zombie , Night of the demon) , Western (Wichita , Great Day in the Morning, Canyon Passage , Stranger on Horseback) , Film Noir (Berlin Express , Out of past , Nick Carter master detective) and adventures (Flame and the arrow , Marathon battle , Appointment in Honduras , Tombuctú , City under the sea) .Torneur knew the imagination was stronger than anything filmmakers could show visually and played on it with breathtaking results . Rating : 6.5/10 . Decent wartime movie . It will appeal to Gregory Peck fans .

(Some Spoilers) Despite the high hopes and bombastic claims by Adolf Hitler and the German High Command about achieving a swift and total victory in the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler's Wehrmacht which racked up spectacular results in the summer and fall of 1941. As cold and freezing weather set in the invading Axis forces started to bog down due to the severe Russian winter and stubborn and fanatical Soviet resistance. By the Red Army on the front lines and the Russian partisan bands behind them.

The Russian partisans were groups of lightly armed but highly motivated and disciplined men and women who ambushed German, and their allies, troops and disrupted the German supply and lines of communications. From the start of the war with the USSR on June 21, 1941 to when the German Army was finally driven out of Russia in the early spring of 1944 Russian partisans inflected over 500,000 casualties on the German army and it's allies. The film "Days of Glory" is about one of these Russian partisan bands, operating out of the swamps marshes and forests around the town of Yasnaya Polyana in Central Russia, led by Soviet Red Army officer Vladimir (Gregory Peck).

Far better then most movies made by Hollywood during WWII "Days of Glory" didn't overdo the Russian heroics as well as the evil and viciousness of the invading Germans. The bravest thing that happened in the movie, in regard to the Russian partisans, was when young Mitya, Glen Veron, was captured by the German Army. When Mitya was about to be executed he had a smile on his face and defiance in his voice, toward his German executioners, as he was hung in the town square.

The Germans for their part were brutal and ruthless to the Russian people that they were in control of. Non the less the Germans weren't as bad as in movies like "The North Star". Where they drained out the blood, like vampires, of the Russian villagers to be used to treat wounded German soldiers, with badly needed blood-transfusions. Or even like in the film "Till We Meet Again" where they, the Germans, raped and inducted Catholic Nuns into brothels to serve and entertain the German Army.

The movie has a very sad and touching love story with Vladimir and the two women who were in love with him Yelena & Nina, Maria Palmer & Tamara Toumanova, and resulted in one of them getting killed by the Germans. Leaving the other feeling guilty, and in a way responsible, about what happened to her. Yelena was a hardened guerrilla fighter who killed over 60 German soldiers during the war. Nina was a sweet sensitive and no-violent young women who was a star dancer in the Russian Bellet before the war began and a Russian guerrilla fighter after it started.

Even though the war action in "Days of Glory" was very sparse when it did come on the screen it was awesome. With a spectacular German ammunition train explosion and a tremendous shoot-out with the attacking German Army, at the very end of the movie. With the Russian Partisans, led by Vladimir and Nina, fighting for their lives with mostly home-made guns and grenades against German tanks planes and artillery pieces. "Days of Glory" did in no way celebrate the brutal Joeseph Stalin regime that ran Russia during WWII as well as before and after the war. In fact I don't remember hearing even once "Comrad Stalin's" name mentioned in the movie.

The film "Days of Glory" was about a people, the Russian people, raising up against an invader and fighting him with everything that they had at their disposal, as meager as it was; in order to drive him, the Germans, out of their homes and land for good and forever.

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.

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.

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!

Gregory Peck is the leader of a group of Russian Guerillas who are fighting the invading Nazis. Peck is the leader of the group but there isn't that many people in the group, they even have a teenager and his younger sister helping out. They also have a woman sharpshooter and several other members. They go out at night to do some damage and hide out by day. They take in a ballet dancer who doesn't want to kill but winds up killing an escaping Nazi. Peck and the dancer end up falling in love and have several love scenes together. They blow up an ammunition train and they also have to hold off some Nazis when the Russians want to do a counter-attack. This was Gregory Peck's first film but this wasn't his best film.

During the 1941 invasion of Russia by the Nazi's the odds are overwhelming as the German army marches across the land. However resistance among the brave Russians makes up with heart what it lacks in sophistication and size.

One such outfit is a small group of guerrilla soldiers lead by Vladimir. The new arrival of an 'outsider' creates tensions within the group but the capture of a German soldier offers the possibility of information and the potential for a demoralising strike at the invading army as well as his attempted escape helping the group trust one another again.

Perhaps understandably the Russian/German front has been largely ignored by Hollywood in the past few decades and even now it is possible that Days Of Glory is only increasing in circulation because the embarrassment factor has faded. During the cold war, nobody really wanted a WWII propaganda piece that shows the Russians (our enemy) as upright, heroic and American (!). However now we are all in the War on Terror together, I notice this film has started being seen more than it was ten years ago. I was attracted to this by the director and the presence of Peck – however this is far from being one of Tourneur's famous films and Peck was in his first screen role. Essentially this is a big 'thank you' to the Russian soldiers by putting them in a story where they talk endlessly about why they are fighting while falling in love, looking heroic and sacrificing their lives. It is as basic and uninspiring as all that sounds and it smacks of a film that puts propaganda first and entertainment second.

This is not to say that it doesn't try because it does, with some action, some human drama and the standard wartime romance. It is not terrible but it does get a little dull at times and has far too much heavy handed preaching while the emotional music swells in the background. The cast features a surprising amount of people in their screen debuts – I'm not sure if that was deliberate but it doesn't show that much. Peck shows the sort of furrowed brow and screen presence that made him a famous leading man while the rest of the cast do OK in average characters who are either jovial, heroic or brave depending on what point the film is trying to get across.

Overall this is an interesting film because it is unusual to see an American propaganda film bigging up the Russians. It has some involving action towards the end but mostly it is too talky and preachy, relying on music and heroic sacrifice to pull our heartstrings rather than writing real people who we can get emotionally involved with and care about.

"Days of Glory" is a story about a Russian resistance group on the Eastern Front in World War II. This was one of a few pro-Soviet films Hollywood made during the war. All were propaganda films to reassure Americans of the role Russia was playing in helping defeat Nazi Germany. But, with very little true information at that time about the Russian resistance and military battles, Hollywood could only romanticize the Russians' roles and characters. And, it did so much as it did with some of the movies it made about our own fighting and heroes. The acting here is OK, and the movie is fair. It's a simple plot that looks at what might be routine days in a small resistance group hideout. Of course, it throws in the usual Hollywood romance.

It seems that most Hollywood studios made a film to show and build support for the Soviet Union as an ally in the war. The Hollywood nod to the Russians began in May 1943, with a Warner Brothers' film, "Mission to Moscow." Others that followed were "The North Star" in 1943 by RKO, "Three Russian Girls" in 1943 by United Artists, "The Boy from Stalingrad" in 1943 by Columbia, "The Song of Russia" in 1944 by MGM, and "Counter-Attack" in 1945 by Columbia. Only Universal and 20th Century Fox seem not to have done a film about our Soviet ally.

None of these films stand out or show much of the reality of the Russian efforts in WWII. Not until 2001 in "Enemy at the Gates," do we have an American film that shows some of the horror of the war in Russia, and the sacrifices of the Russian people. Since the fall of the Soviet Union other very good Russian and eastern European films have been made about the war on the Eastern Front.

What I find curious about "Days of Glory," is its June 16, 1944 release date. This was less than a year before the end of the war in Europe. The movie covers a time of the resistance forces up until the major Soviet counter-attack. But that began after the Soviet defeat of the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943 – almost a year and a half earlier. And, the release of this film came 10 days after D-Day and the Allied landings in Normandy. Why would it be so necessary or helpful at this late date to build American support for Russia in the war? Indeed, was it wise to do any more trumpeting of the Russians with what we already knew then about the Soviet Union – unless there were some other reasons?

It's true that the American intelligence effort was relatively new and not yet very well-grounded at the time. But, the American and other western news media were very aggressive and thorough in their reporting of the war as they had been for several years before the war. So, here we have the U.S. government and Hollywood interested in building up the image of the Soviet Union as our ally in fighting the Germans – not before the war, but well into it when the Allies in the West were attacking on all fronts. One must wonder how much the U.S. and Hollywood knew about the atrocities of Joseph Stalin who had been in power for more than a decade by this time. He had ordered the Great Purge in 1936 to 1938. He had ordered the murder and imprisonment of half a million of his own leaders. He had invaded Finland in 1939 and Poland with Germany in 1940. He had annexed the Balkan states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940. All of these things had been reported, and yet the U.S. and Hollywood were still putting out propaganda films in support of Russia late in the war.

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

There is something too sedate about the emotions and acting in this film, which is something I've noticed in director Jacques Tourneur's later, more popular works as well. Here it feels even more out of place given the setting, which is a group of Russian partisans fighting the Nazis on the Eastern front. The scenes between Gregory Peck and Tamara Toumanova are one of the better parts of it (Peck was 28 in his first film and has quite a presence, and Toumanova practically whispers her lines breathlessly), but even they are marked by a lack of passion.

The film is clearly a war-time effort to boost morale, and it's nice to see Hollywood make a film with Soviet heroes, given the magnitude of that nation's sacrifice in WWII. It glamorizes bravery and self-sacrifice, and the feeling that we're all in it together (kids included) to defeat evil. In a nice touch, in one scene the partisans don't kill a Nazi they've captured despite German atrocities, because as one puts it "In this world of blood and misery there must be someplace, small and underground though it may be, where the laws of justice and humanity are preserved." To not hate the enemy so much that one becomes like them in emulating their practices is a powerful message, which unfortunately has sometimes been forgotten.

I loved the Russian literature bits, including a lengthy quote from Pushkin's 'Eugene Onegin' (which I quote below, in the translation used in the film), as well as a reference to Lermontov's 'A Hero of Our Time.' Even the enemy position is at Yasnaya Polyana, the site of Tolstoy's home, outside of Tula.

There are some nice scenes in the winter and in battle, but they're unfortunately offset at times with silliness, for example Toumanova taking the Soviet oath and talking with Peck, the two of them smiling, while under a Nazi tank attack. Cut to narrator telling us about how the hordes of Hitler are being turned back and towards the setting sun of their defeat, and, well, you probably get the picture.

Here's the Pushkin quote: Chapter 3, IX. 1-4 With what a tension she poured over a sentimental novel. She drank in with what intense enjoyment each sweet, seductive fantasy.

Then later, Toumanova quoting Tatyana's letter (after a line that the screenwriter must have added): Chapter 3, XXXI. 17-21 And now you have it in your power to punish me with your disdain. But if you find you have for me the smallest drop of sympathy, you will not leave me in such a way.

She skips forward to XXXIII. 36-39 Why did you ever come to call? For in this far forgotten spot, we never should have met at all. And all this pain, so burning hot, I might have missed.

And then to XXXI. 45-47 But no, there is no other man to whom I could have given my love. And I'm yours by heaven's plan determined in the courts above. My life so far has been a pledge for this sure meeting God would send.

Gregory Peck made his debut here in this unusual propaganda film; American made during the Second World War and about a unit of Russia guerrilla fighters living in the countryside during Operation Barbarossa in 1941/42. It is not a bad film by any means but it gets bogged down by its own melodrama and the jingoism is very cringe-inducing to watch these days; especially when it is an American-made picture about the Soviets. The film begins with an excellent scene where we look down the scope of sniper out in the woods, as she takes down a German scout out on a motorbike. She then returns to the underground hideout occupied by the guerrillas, where they have just taken in a famous dancer who became separated from her group out in the woods. They don't know what to make of her because she can't cook, in fact little Olga is disgusted by the idea that a woman can not cook! The underground hideout has a real family dynamic to it with a good mixture of young and old, male and female, and it is all led by Vladimir (Peck), who is waiting to receive orders from command on what his small, but battle-seasoned, group are to do next... Overall, this has not aged well at all but I would not dismiss it entirely, as it is Gregory Peck's debut and there are a few good scenes, particularly the ones involving the German armour.

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?

Aside two facts as Gregory Peck's debut and over the direction of the master Jacques Tourneau this one caught shamefully in mass grave of the ultra-nationalism told by the winner, thus the writers can handle the facts at their whim, Hollywood made this picture in twilight the war in 1944, knowing in advance the allied will win the war, the story took place in 1941 when the Nazi forces and the feared powerful German war machine invades the URSS in order got the supplies minerals and oil plenty in that ground, nonetheless a fast planned campaign becomes a nightmare when reach the "Gen Cold'.

In that side were the dreadful Communist system who killed 5 millions of their fellow-countrymen in shortest years, the butcher comrade Stalin was in power, don't forget that, those humble peasants that became a guerrilla were the same people that crushed those 5 millions twenty years before, in fact the URSS's resistance really happened there as appears on movie, all those train sabotage is real, Russians on rustic weapon against the blinded advanced tanks also is reliable, however a teenager plead for glorious death has a great distance of reality, nobody dying singing as displayed in the story.

Anyway a cheap propaganda aiming for fooled the unwary nationalist, today Russia is the enemy, in fact I don't hear any movie from Hollywood praising their past allied nowadays, the things happens according the circumstances likewise in 1944, aftermaths they hate each other, the ballet dancer Nina (Tamara Toumanova) appears on picture as opposite the hero Vladimir (Gregory Peck) a surreal sexy night both already were in love, well we have to stand such ludicrous thing.

Moreover the gorgeous blonde Yelena is prettier than Nina undoubtedly, the drunkard Sasha (Alan Reed) and his opponent Fedor (Hugo Hass) are interesting Russian characters in fine performance, the poet Semyon (Lowell Gilmore) is another highlight quoting some poems enhancing the narrative, let it see just for Gregory Peck, Jack Tourneau and colorful character cited above.

Resume:

First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: TV / Rating: 6.

Jacques Tourneur directs this stodgy World War 2 propaganda film highlighting the contribution made by communist Russia.

Gregory Peck makes his debut as a local guerrilla leader Vladimir who falls for dancer Nina Ivanova (Tamara Toumanova) who ends up being stranded with them.

Set in 1941, the Russian guerrillas taken on the Nazis through sabotage.

Soon they have to undertake a mission to halt the German invasion of Russia

It is an unusual Hollywood movie as it promotes communist Russia although politics is kept on the backburner.

Peck has a brooding presence but the movie is so earnest and starchy.

This is a rotten film--embarrassingly bad, in fact. This was a piece of pure propaganda that was pure crap. In an attempt to rehabilitate our former enemies, the Russians, into our allies (WWII did create some strange bedfellows), Hollywood produced several horrid films that portrayed the Russians as "just like us", while in fact, their leader was one of the greatest mass murderers in human history. The movie is shameless in how positively it portrays the Russian people--as 100% wonderful and noble. While I do applaud the bravery of those Russians who fought the Germans, it was NOT generally due to love of Stalinism that motivated them, but survival.

So is there anything that makes watching this film worth while? Not much, unless you are a REAL film buff. That's because you'll see a very young Gregory Peck BEFORE he was a star. It's amazing that this film didn't end his career outright, but he somehow persevered and went on to become one of our greatest actors. Anyone who fails should use this as a motivating example for life!

Excellent cast, Peck is great in this vehicle with limited resources. Co-star Tamara Toumanova is beautiful as his love interest. Depects the sacrafice the russian peoples army made fighting the Nazis. The army was made up of ordinary people banding together in small units to harass and eventually drive the germans out of their homeland. Excellent personel interaction between the actors that gives you the feeling of their inner thoughts, fear, love and bravery and not just war action. Patriotic and tearfull at times.

The old sitcom Hogan's Heroes with its threat to the inept Col.Klink of being sent the Eastern Front got me interested in why that threat rather than say North Africa, Italy or Western Europe held such terror. The reason: It was hell on Earth! If the forces engaged by the Hitler regime had available for duty in the West there is a chance that WWII in Europe might have ended in late Aug. 1945 with a slim chance that no Allied forces would have had bridgeheads across the Rhine. Thankfully for world history The Wehrmact was ground up in the most vicious modern war campaign of the last century. Perhaps one of the reasons the world isn't( And may it never happen) a nuked out wasteland is the fact that the Soviets had fought a savage four year war on its own home soil and spent the better part of twenty years hiding the damage done to it. A scarred but comparatively healthy Soviet Union might have went to war during the Cuban Missle Crisis with catastrophic results for the world( Paris Hilton the glow in the dark two headed freak come to mind) Back on subject this film along with "Song Of Russia" was an ode to the Russians for now being on the "right" side. The film is dull with too many why we fight/and what we're ready to sacrifice speeches. Peck's partisan band is slowly knocked off until he Moscow Cutie and old peasant from Tevel's village are left waiting to be ground into the snowy steppes as a flaming Nazi tank( Did the screenwriter know something about the sexual habits of certain Nazi types " Himmler you look ravishing in that pink chiffon number") rolls over them. Well Stalin was a brutal dictator but he had hordes of increasingly effective officers and troops engaged with the German Army's best, while another brutal dictator Chiang Kai Shek, led a corrupt regime that strategically didn't do a damn thing to influence the Pacific War.Oh well. The Commie Slavs 1 The Corrupt Triad 0 the film is a two star time filler if say Paris Hilton ain't on

This movie has much to commend it: a slice of history that Americans often don't encounter; tense wartime drama and excitement; Gregory Peck's heroic strength; Tamara Toumanova's sensitive beauty; a slice-of-life mix of supporting characters. A standard I apply to movies is that they should show me things I have never seen before, and "Days of Glory" fully satisfies that requirement.

However, this should not make the viewer forget what the movie was intended to be -- World War II pro-Soviet propaganda. Much Hollywood output in the early '40s was aimed at supporting the war effort (consider all the combat and home-front movies from that time), and for a nation at war this is totally understandable.

But this film, like some others of that era (e.g., "Mission to Moscow", "The North Star", "Song of Russia") was explicitly intended to generate sympathy for and solidarity with our then Soviet allies. This too would be understandable if it did not also attempt to obliterate the historical fact that these "allies" were no less evil and murderous than the Nazis.

This does not mean a modern viewer should not watch this film (just as the propaganda should not keep the movie fan away from "Alexander Nevsky" or "Potemkin"), but when watching this otherwise entertaining film the viewer should keep in mind its role in supporting the system that would become an even greater threat to life and freedom in the 20th Century than the enemy we were fighting.

This could have been a much more effective WW2 drama had not the screenwriter and producer Casey Robinson gummed it up with a ridiculous romance between his wife Tamara Toumanova and Gregory Peck. They play an out-of-place Russian ballerina and a guerilla commander, respectively, who mix it up while the German invaders are over-running the Soviet Union. In between clinches the audience gets a relatively mild dose of Popular Front propaganda of the type that every studio in town cranked out for a brief time to bolster public opinion about our Red Allies. "The North Star" is a similar film, but much more action-oriented, and much more entertaining as a result.

When I viewed this film I was quite surprised to see a very young Gregory Peck,"Spellbound",'45, give an outstanding performance in a black and white film about a few Russian citizens defending their country against the Nazi take over of their town. The Nazi Army utilized many tanks in order to take over this town and out numbered the Russian's by a very large percentage. Tamara Toumanova,(Nina Ivanova),Torn Curtain",'66 gave an outstanding supporting role who was very young and attractive. Nina was able to put some romance into this picture with her good looks and sexy boots. Tamara Toumanova and Gregory Peck were a great couple in this film and it is too bad she decided to marry the director of this film right after production. A great Classic film that is worth while viewing.

I'm surprised everyone involved in this pro-Soviet propaganda didn't end up getting blacklisted. It's nothing less than a miracle that a ''star of the NY stage" as Peck is billed here in his debut went on to have an actual film career. I get it, Hollywood pumped out crapola like this to get rubes in the Midwest feeling fuzzy about our allies on the Eastern Front in the fight against Hitler. But 15 minutes after the war ended this film should have been incinerated for heating fuel. Badly shot on a sound stage and about as exciting as catching malaria in a trench, this movie is completely forgettable.