The North Star 1943 BrRip Mp4 Lee1001

The North Star 1943 BrRip Mp4 Lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036217/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Star_(1943_film)

When it comes to the great war films, Lewis Milestone's All Quiet On The Western Front regularly tops the list. However, given what it contributed to the US war effort, an argument could be made for Milestone's less celebrated The North Star being a more important picture. At the time the film was made, 1943, it was becoming increasingly apparent that, if America and her allies were to triumph over Nazi Germany, they were going to have to rely on the Russians. But what was John Q Citizen to make of the vodka-swilling, communism embracing Russkies? Hopefully a film like The North Star would illustrate that not only were Mother Russia's children much like Uncle Sam's but they also shared similar dreams, qualities and objectives. The Ukraine, 1943: and a band of school friends are walking across country to Kiev. With the school year over, the youngsters are keen to enjoy themselves, but they've reckoned without the Nazis who are now at war with their former ally. As the friends' village is ravaged by the Luftwaffe, the men folk take to the hills where they join the resistance. The women and children, meanwhile, are left at the mercy of a German doctor (Erich Von Stroheim) who views his young charges as a limitless supply of fresh plasma. Since they think little of the Russians, the Nazis believe it won't be long before they capitulate. But just as the Great Bear was surprised by Hitler's betrayal, so the Fuhrer will underestimate the Russian capacity for resistance, here personified by our five young heroes and their efforts to keep the guerillas supplied with artillery and ammunition. Although it now seems unsubtle and hackneyed, the power of The North Star is easy to appreciate if you can just keep the context in mind. Despite being only a few miles away across the Baring Straits, American understanding of the USSR in the early 1940s didn't extend much beyond snow and salt mines. Milestone's movie was an attempt to win hearts and minds, nothing more, nothing less. The success of the exercise stemmed from Milestone's understanding of the genre (his list of war films is really long and includes such classics as A Walk In The Sun and Halls Of Montezuma) and the ability of Anne Baxter, Dean Jagger, Farley Granger and Co. to play young Russians who come on along like contemporary American teens. Special mention must also go to John Huston's dad Walter, who was the best thing about so many films, and to Erich Von Stroheim, the genius director (Greed) who proved his professionalism by being happy to play the bad German when the directing work dried up. The cinematography is also superb, but then you'd expect nothing else from the mighty James Wong Howe (Hud, The Rose Tattoo). Precisely what difference The North Star made to the war effort we'll never know. But if all Hollywood propaganda pictures conformed to Milestone's high stands, we might be less inclined to cringe whenever the studios decide to get behind the boys.



November 5, 1943

'The North Star,' Invasion Drama, With Walter Huston, Opens in Two Theatres Here -- 'Claudia' at Music Hall.



By BOSLEY CROWTHER

The story of Russia's recent ordeal has been variously reported to the world through mediums which have eminently reflected one of history's most terrible wars. And now comes a motion picture which images that conflict in a way intended to state its human meanings without any political pondering at all. It is Samuel Goldwyn's new production, "The North Star," which was presented here last night at two Broadway theatres, the New Victoria and the Palace—an honor accorded to only a few previous films.



Based on a script originally written by Lillian Hellman and directed by Lewis Milestone, this lyric and savage picture suggests in passionate terms the outrage committed upon a peaceful people by the invading armies of Nazi Germany And it offers a clamorous tribute to the courage and tenacity of those who have sacrificed their homes, themselves and their families in resisting the Fascist hordes in this war.



Through the evidence of one happy village—apparently Russian, though that fact is strangely slurred—it indicates what the Germans ran into when they crossed a border on a fateful June day. It shows how the people of this village girded themselves for a no-quarter fight—how the men went off to the hills to become guerrillas and how the women, children and old folks remained at home to scorch the earth ahead of the invaders and to endure brutalities of the most inhuman sort, particularly the taking of blood from children for transfusion into German soldiers. And it ends with a rip-roaring melee when the guerrillas come down out of the hills, after a brave group of children and one old man have run some guns through to them, to retake the village, slaughter its Nazi garrison and liberate the populace.



It is a heroic picture, the force of which is weakened only by the fact that in it Mr. Goldwyn and Mr. Milestone have too freely mixed theatrical forms. The first part of the film, in which the village and its inhabitants are idyllically introduced, is distinctly in the style of operetta. There are music (by Aaron Copland) and rollicking gaiety of the sort familiar to lighthearted peasants in musical comedies set in mythical foreign lands. When the people of the village gather for a sociable evening al fresco, it might even be a scene from "Oklahoma " And when the children go off on a walking trip, they sing of themselves delightedly as "the younger generation and the future of the nation" in lyrics by Ira Gershwin.



The contrast is therefore too prodigious when the bombs suddenly come raining down and the style of the film abruptly changes to one of vehement reality. The switch is too obvious a reminder of the theatrical nature of the film. But from that point on the tension and excitement are so extreme that reflection is not convenient. And the film is climaxed by an eloquent scene in which is stated finely the idea that all men who aid the Fascists are enemies of humanity.



This scene, in which Walter Huston as the village doctor kills Erich von Stroheim in the role of a Nazi surgeon who pretends to regret what he does, is by far the most trenchant in the picture, and a ringing truth lies in the village doctor's words, "I have heard about men like you—the civilized men who are sorry.You are the real filth—men who do the work of Fascists and pretend to themselves they are better than those for whom they work, men who do murder while they laugh at those for whom they do it." This speech, written by Miss Hellman, lifts the film to a thrilling peak.



The performance of Mr. Huston is excellent, combining gentleness, dignity and rugged strength, and Mr. von Stroheim is caustic and arrogant in a role that fits him like a monocle. Walter Brennan brings humor and homely gravity to the part of an old farmer, while Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Jane Withers and Farley Granger are conventionally spirited as young folks.



"The North Star" has so much in it that is moving and triumphant that its sometime departures from reality may be generally overlooked.



Producer Samuel Goldwyn made The North Star at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,yet ironically, several members of the film's creative team later found their motivations for making the film questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, who declared it Communist propaganda.



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