Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #5
About Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #5
Issued as Victory Is Ours!, Combat Film Collection No. 5 joins two newsreels. London Will Not Surrender! follows one raid: barrage balloons rise at dusk, Londoners pack the Underground, controllers plot bombers on a table map, then fighters, searchlights, and guns take the sky until fire crews and street sweepers start the morning. Our Moscow, filmed in July and August 1941, moves from sandbagged shop windows and Lyubov Orlova reading Izvestia in a restaurant to women at the Trekhgornaya mill and rooftop watches knocking out incendiaries. Captain Titenkov and Senior Lieutenant Kukharenko land from night sorties, and a staged insert restages Viktor Talalikhin’s ram near Stepygino. Aleksandrov’s The Sacred War closes the reel as troops leave for the front.
Cast & crew
More about Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #5
Pera Atasheva assembled the 14-minute London half at Mosfilm from British newsreel; Boris Agapov wrote the commentary, read by Vladimir Yakhontov. Mikhail Slutsky directed the 38-minute Our Moscow at the Central Studio of Documentary Films, from Aleksei Kapler’s script and Yuri Levitan’s narration. Crews stood duty at airfields, anti-aircraft sites, searchlight posts, balloon units, and rooftops while the studio stayed at 2nd Bryansk Lane.
Themes
Background
The collection opened on 2 October 1941, in the defensive phase of the Battle of Moscow. By 1 October, Sovinformburo had logged 36 attempts by large German formations to bomb the city. Passersby in the film stop to read those bulletins, which the bureau had begun posting on 24 June.
In film history
Our Moscow was the first full-length documentary on the air defense of the capital. The London half, built from British chronicle, puts the two capitals in one program a little over three months after Germany invaded the USSR.
Making
Slutsky cut real street footage together with staged sound and combination shots. Reports at Moscow Military District headquarters and talk in the shelters play like rehearsed scenes, a method he had used on 1930s documentaries.
Look
Ivan Belyakov was chief cameraman on Our Moscow, with Iosif Veinerovich, Mikhail Glider, Kenan Kutub-zade, Ottilia Reizman, Vasily Solovyov, and Vladimir Frolenko. Their coverage includes night fighters, batteries at Krasnaya Presnya, Sokolniki, and Zamoskvorechye, and balloons over the Kremlin, the Moskva Hotel, and Gorky Street.
Music
Yury Milyutin wrote the score for Our Moscow; Arnold Roytman arranged it. The epilogue uses Aleksandr Aleksandrov’s song The Sacred War, words by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach, over columns marching out.
Preservation
The Central Studio of Documentary Films lists the picture as public domain. Gosfilmofond holds the source materials, and the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents catalogs it as document 14050.
Notes
- It is the only combat film collection of 1941–42 cut entirely from newsreel; the other numbers are acted shorts.
- This was the last collection released under the slogan Victory Is Ours. From No. 6 the series kept only the number.
- The picture runs six reels, timed at 51 minutes 58 seconds in the studio catalog.
- Lyubov Orlova appears as herself, drinking tea and reading Izvestia.
- Footage shows the Vakhtangov Theatre after the raid of 23–24 July 1941 and the Timiryazev monument damaged on 5 August.
- A kindergarten is set up inside Mayakovskaya metro station, which also serves as a shelter.
- The Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents holds the film as document 14050.
Awards
- Stalin Prize, second degree (1942), to Mikhail Slutsky, Ivan Belyakov, and Vasily Solovyov for Our Moscow
Scenes
- Barrage balloons climb over London while the Underground carries people home.
- Orlova reads Izvestia at a restaurant table as shop windows nearby are stacked with sandbags.
- A photograph of Viktor Talalikhin cuts to a reconstruction of his night ram near Stepygino.
- Senior Lieutenant Kukharenko sleeps after shooting down two aircraft; wreckage of a German plane lies on the Klyazma.
- The Sacred War plays as troops leave Moscow for the front.
Also available
- Gosfilmofond of Russia
- Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents (document 14050)
- Wikimedia Commons (1941 Боевой киносборник № 5; Победа за нами.webm)
Quotes
The city plunges into darkness; it has closed the eyes of its windows and alerted its ears.
