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

[Vanchu, Anthony J. (JSC-AH)[TECHTRANS INTERNATIONAL, INC.]]

How about The Scarlet Empress with Marlene Dietrich (1934)?

Dr. Anthony J. Vanchu, Ph.D.
TechTrans International, Inc.
Director, JSC Language Education Center
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
(281) 483-0644

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From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Beth Holmgren
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 12:53 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Film Question - US and Russia in Each Other's Films

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<mailto: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

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