Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #8
About Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #8
Combat Film Collection No. 8 is two acted shorts about occupied Europe. Night Over Belgrade, directed by Leonid Lukov, puts Tatyana Okunevskaya on Belgrade radio, Natalya Gitserot as a Serbian girl, Osip Abdulov as the tavern-keeper Mirko, and Ivan Novoseltsev as the patriot Hotich, with Alexander Khvylya as the German commandant, Oberleutnant Fisher. Three Tankmen, directed by Nikolai Sadkovich, follows a crew: Mark Bernes as commander Mikhailo Yurchenko, Boris Andreyev as Makar, and Pyotr Aleynikov as Savka. Aleynikov also plays an underground man in the Belgrade story.
Cast & crew
More about Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #8
The Kiev studio had been evacuated to Tashkent. Lukov and Sadkovich shot the two novellas there while German troops were still pressing toward Moscow. Iosif Sklyut wrote Night Over Belgrade; Vsevolod Ivanov is the other credited writer. Alexander Lavrik photographed the Belgrade story, Nikolai Kulchitsky the collection’s other camera credit. The program opened on 7 February 1942, after the Soviet counteroffensive outside Moscow.
Themes
Background
Filming fell during the German advance on Moscow. The release date, 7 February 1942, is after the Red Army had pushed the front back from the capital.
Making
Night Over Belgrade carries a 1941 Tashkent studio credit in the cinema encyclopedia, with sets by Vladimir Kaplunovsky and Morits Umansky. The two shorts were then issued together as collection No. 8.
Look
Alexander Lavrik shot Night Over Belgrade. Nikolai Kulchitsky is the other cameraman credited on the collection.
Music
Tatyana Okunevskaya sings. Wikipedia lists Nikita Bogoslovsky and Ashot Filipp as the composers.
Preservation
A black-and-white print of 55 minutes 53 seconds is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Okunevskaya’s Belgrade role is a radio announcer, and she sings in the film.
- Lavrenty Masokha plays Max, a German NCO, in the Belgrade novella and an uncredited German soldier in the tank story. Stepan Kayukov is another NCO; Ivan Bobrov a German soldier.
- Vasily Zaychikov is a waiter. Lidiya Kartashova plays a Belgrade resident.
- Andrey Sova, billed as a soldier, is also in the tank novella’s cast on the Commons description.
- The Wikimedia file runs 55 minutes 53 seconds.
- It sits between Combat Film Collection No. 7 and No. 9. Unlike No. 5, these halves are fiction, not newsreel.
Scenes
- Okunevskaya plays the Belgrade radio announcer and sings.
- Abdulov’s Mirko keeps a tavern; Novoseltsev’s Hotich is the patriot against Khvylya’s commandant Fisher.
- Bernes, Andreyev, and Aleynikov are the three tankmen: Yurchenko, Makar, and Savka.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1942 Боевой киносборник № 8.webm)
