Days of Glory (1944)

                    “Days of Glory” is a curio back from the days when the Soviet Union was our best buddy.  Although an American production, it has an international flair.  Director Jacques Tourneur was French.  The leads were both making their film debuts.  Tamara Toumanova was an acclaimed Russian ballet dancer.  Gregory Peck was moving up from a stage career.  In case you are wondering, he was exempt from military service because of a back injury sustained from dancing lessons.  (The studio claimed he was injured rowing in college.)  Well, at least it wasn’t bone spurs.

                    The movie opens strong with a sniper’s eye view of Yelena (Maria Palmer) taking out two Germans.  Unfortunately, the movie is not going to be an homage to Soviet female snipers.  Instead, it will concentrate on a Soviet entertainer named Nina (Toumanova) who gets separated from her troupe and ends up with partisans led by Vladimir (Peck).  Vladimir was an architect before the war, but now it is his job to blow things up.  War, am I right?   It’s an ensemble movie as the partisan unit consists of several cinematic characters.  Besides Yelena, there is the intellectual Semyon (Lowell Gilmore).  Dmitri is the teenager who wants action.  The introduction into this group of an uncalloused entertainer causes a stir, but after she kills a German, she is accepted as one of them.  In fact, Vladimir decides she is sabotage-ready.  After all, Vlad is not going to leave his new squeeze behind, is he?  This leads to their involvement in a big Red Army attack.

                    The clear goal of the movie is to give credit to the Soviet partisans who were doing much more than American audiences to fight the fascist menace.  The film is not overly propagandistic and it is appropriately grim in depicting the dangers of being a partisan. Their actions are commendatory and a 1944 audience might have squirmed a bit when reflecting on the lives they were returning to when the lights came back on.  However, the script dilutes the homage with a heavy dose of cinematic balderdash.  The romance between Vladimir and Nina is mandatory, but defies reality.  A guy like Vladimir would not fall for someone like Nina.  She is a fish out of water and should have been gasping for air, not blowing up trains.  The decision to downplay the truly heroic Yelena was a 1940s-style decision that separates war movies then from those of today.  I’ll mention “Enemy at the Gates” as an example of this.  It doesn’t help that Toumanova is terrible in this movie.  She may have been a great dancer, but that does not translate to playing one in a movie.  On the other side of the cheeks (there’s lots of cheek-to-cheek talking in the movie), Peck shows in his debut that he is going to be a major star. 

                    I can’t really recommend this movie other than as an example of the pro-Soviet movies made during the war.  It is better than most of those, like “The North Star”.  As a war movie, it lacks action, but it does avoid most cliches and it is unpredictable.  The death toll is very high for a 1940s war flick.  Watch a Soviet movie instead.  You may have to read subtitles, but that’s better than having to watch a ballerina try to act.

GRADE  =  C

Day 12 - Days of Glory (2006)

Here is the full list:
God is My Co-Pilot
The Vikings
The Mark of Cain
Never So Few
El Alamein
The Wild Geese
An Ungentlemanly Act
Bravo Two Zero
The Fighting Seabees
The Cockleshell Heroes
Heartbreak Ridge

 

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me  -  twelve indigenes invading

            “Days of Glory” is a French movie about French Algerians who volunteered to be Tirailleurs in the Free French army during WWII.  The French title is “Indigenes” which refers to them being indigenous people.  The movie was released in 2006 and won several international awards and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.  The movie had a goal of achieving pensions for the Algerian veterans.  Admirable.

                The film opens in Algeria in 1943.  We are introduced to the main characters.  Said (Jamel Debbouze) is  a shepherd who is loyal to France and leaves his mom to fight the Germans for French independence.  Yassir and his brother are two thieves who want out, but loot in the meantime.  Messaoud (Roschy Zem) hopes to live in France.  Abelkader (Sami Bouajila) is an intellectual.  They join a unit led by Sgt. Martinez (Bernard Blancan), who turns out to be a self-loathing Arab.  The unit is sent to Italy where it distinguishes itself, but is used as cannon fodder by the French.  They are sent to storm a hill so the French artillery can pinpoint the German strongpoints.  The scene is pretty good with effective sound effects and explosions.  Slightly graphic with some hand-held, but no slo-mo.  From this point on the movie strives to develop the theme of French racism toward its Algerian troops.

                The men are shipped to Southern France as part of Operation Dragoon.  Messaoud makes a love connection with a French woman, but when they move on the French censors stop their letters because she is white and he is Arab.  Neither one knows this.  The unit is not given promotions (or tomatoes) and few leaves in comparison to their white counterparts.  To make up for this treatment, they are “treated” to a ballet!  They walk out in disgust.  As would I.

                The big pay-off is a suicide mission into a forest in Alsace.  A booby trap kills most of the squad including Yassir’s brother.  The surviving ensemble takes refuge in a friendly village and the movie becomes a last stand when German forces arrive.  Who will survive?  Do we care?  Yes.

                The film is well-meaning and deserves some slack for that.  However, as a war movie, it is pretty boring.  This is especially apparent because the highlight is the hill attack scene and it occurs towards the front of the plot.  What combat there is is too brief, although well done.  There is little character development.  The very brief character identifications I gave in the second paragraph are pretty much all I can tell you about the men.  The actors are decent, but to tell the truth some of them are not easy on the eyes.  Yassir, Said, and the Sergeant are unappealing both visually and personality-wise.

                While the movie does advance the theme that the Algerians were given a raw deal, I came away thinking they were fools to have fought for a nation that had colonized their nation.  I suppose in reality some of these men would go on to join the Algerian freedom fighters after WWII.  This movie is not in the same league as “The Battle of Algiers”, but it does put that movie in some perspective.

                Christmas present?  I think I'll regift this one to Caroline.

grade =  C- 

              Well, this completes my 12 Days of Christmas series.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Thanks to all who made some excellent comments.  There was some awesome feedback.  I am proud that I managed to accomplish what I set out to do.  I just wish the movies had been better.  At least they were entertaining.