Alitet Leaves for the Hills
About Alitet Leaves for the Hills
Before the revolution, traders squeeze the people of Chukotka. Nikita Los, from the Kamchatka Revolutionary Committee, and the ethnographer Andrei Zhukov arrive on the coast, and word of the Russians moves from camp to camp. The American Charlie Thomson and the local boss Alitet push back. Fair-trade rules are put in place anyway. Thomson's men and Alitet leave for the hills.
Cast & crew
More about Alitet Leaves for the Hills
Mark Donskoy directed. Tikhon Syomushkin wrote the script from his own novel. Sergey Urusevsky photographed and Lev Shvarts composed the score. Andrei Abrikosov plays Los, Lev Sverdlin plays Alitet, and Boris Tenin plays Charlie Thomson. Wikidata dates the release April 10, 1950. English-language listings often date the film 1949. The running time is 100 minutes.
Themes
Background
The plot is set at the moment Soviet trade officials reach Chukotka and push out an American trader and a local boss. It was released in the late Stalin years.
Making
Donskoy took a Chukotka novel and staged the coast and the hills with Urusevsky's camera, using the Khibiny range rather than the Pacific arctic.
Look
Sergey Urusevsky photographed the coast arrivals and the mountain exits, working far from Chukotka in the Khibiny.
Music
Lev Shvarts wrote the score.
Preservation
A print of the feature survives.
Notes
- The Russian title is Alitet ukhodit v gory.
- Lenvlad Turkin plays Zhukov. Yuri Leonidov plays Frank, one of Thomson's men.
- Muratek Ryskulov plays Vaal, Zana Zanoni plays Rultyna, and Kenenbai Kozhabekov plays Aye.
- Urusevsky, later the cameraman of The Cranes Are Flying and I Am Cuba, shot this earlier Donskoy picture.
- The Khibiny Mountains are listed among the filming locations, a long way from the Chukotka coast of the story.
Scenes
- News of Los and Zhukov runs along the coast ahead of them.
- Thomson and Alitet lose the trade once the new rules are posted.
- Alitet leaves for the hills.
Influenced by
- Tikhon Syomushkin's novel
