Film Question - US and Russia in Each Other's Films

[Beth Holmgren]

Ben -- Apart from the other references I emailed, I recommend you check out
Harlow Robinson's book RUSSIANS IN HOLLWYOOD

More pre-war suggestions and Hollywood's wartime efforts to represent the
Soviet front:

Comrade X attempts an odd Americanization of Ninotchka.  Brooklyn versus
Paris.
The Cossacks (silent film -- Olga Matich has a terrific article about this
and other Hollywood Russia connections in THE RUSSIAN REVIEW, April 2005)
Balalaika  (Nelson Eddy is the Cossack who must be revolutionized)
Tovarishch (with Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer as Russian emigre
aristocrats reduced to working as servants)

Wartime

North Star (original screenplay by Lillian Hellman; she distanced herself
from the film after Sam Goldwyn and Lewis Milestone tinkered with the
already terrible script)
Song of Russia (an interestingly bad movie, later targeted during the
McCarthy hearings for its upbeat portrayal of Soviet society)
The Boy from Stalingrad
Three Russian Girls
Days of Glory (partisans saving Yasnaia Poliana -- first film of Gregory
Peck)

Some American films featured memorable Russian character actors as supposed
incarnations of Russian national character.  See

Mischa Auer in MY MAN GODFREY and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (prewar)
Leonid Kinskey in CASABLANCA (wartime)

All best,

Beth Holmgren
Duke University



On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Stefani, Sara Marie
<samastef at indiana.edu>wrote:

> Try also:
>
> Comrade X (1940) - a very charming movie with Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr,
> somewhat along the lines of "Ninotchka" with Gable as a roguish journalist
> in Moscow and Lamarr as an earnest Communist
>
> Mission to Moscow (1943) - film version of US Ambassador Joseph E. Davies'
> memoirs; extreme pro-Soviet propaganda! The depiction of Stalin towards the
> end is, wow.
>
> The Iron Petticoat (1956) - Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope. A truly
> terrible, terrible movie, though.
>
> Woody Allen's "Love and Death"
> Mel Brooks' "The Twelve Chairs"
> "White Nights" with Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov
> "The Hunt for Red October" with Sean Connery
>
> Good luck!
>
>
> Sara Stefani
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
>
> Indiana University
>
> ________________________________________
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [
> SEELANGS at listserv.ua.edu] on behalf of Benjamin Rifkin [rifkin at TCNJ.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 10:43 AM
> To: SEELANGS at listserv.ua.edu
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Film Question - US and Russia in Each Other's Films
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> I'm putting together a series of US and Russian films that depict both
> cultures.  I have a couple of Russian films to start with - Brat 2,
> American Daughter, Barber of Siberia - but I'd appreciate suggestions of
> more Russian films that depict Americans and American films that depict
> Russian characters and Russian culture.  All I'm coming up with are these:
>
> Rocky 4
> Russia House
> Sneakers
> Moscow on the Hudson
> Red Dawn
> The Russians Are Coming
> Dr Strangelove
>
> Thanks for any suggestions you may offer.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ben Rifkin
>
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