One Day in Soviet Russia

1940 Documentary 56 minutes Directed by Mikhail Slutsky

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About One Day in Soviet Russia

On 24 August 1940, ninety-seven newsreel cameramen from the Central Studio of Documentary Film shot one working day across the Soviet Union. The seven parts move from sunrise over the Pacific and Vladivostok harbor to Moscow, where Yuri Levitan and Olga Vysotskaya walk in to read the all-Union radio, and where Stalin and Kalinin arrive at the Kremlin. Steel is poured at Magnitogorsk. Galina Ulanova rehearses. The icebreaker Lazar Kaganovich is at sea. In the evening Eddie Rosner's jazz band plays, and the film closes as the next dawn reaches the Far East. Quentin Reynolds narrates the English-language version titled One Day in Soviet Russia.

Cast & crew

More about One Day in Soviet Russia

Mikhail Slutsky and Roman Karmen directed. Boris Yagling and Mark Tseitlin wrote the script. Chief cameramen were Karmen, Mikhail Oshurkov, and Boris Nebylitsky, with 97 operators in the field on 24 August 1940. D. Pokrass composed the music. Vasily Lebedev-Kumach wrote the song. The Soviet film is Den novogo mira, in seven parts. The studio museum exhibits a 22-minute cut. The English-language version, narrated by Quentin Reynolds, is dated 1941.

Themes

  • One calendar day across many time zones
  • Work from the port to the Kremlin
  • A newsreel finished after the invasion
  • 24 August 1940
  • Yuri Levitan
  • Magnitogorsk
  • Galina Ulanova
  • Eddie Rosner
  • Stalin
  • Central Studio

Background

Shot on 24 August 1940 and issued as a seven-part feature. An English narration by Quentin Reynolds circulated in 1941 under the title One Day in Soviet Russia.

Making

The crews worked on a single calendar day, ten months before the German invasion of June 1941. The finished film was released after that invasion had begun.

Look

Ninety-seven Central Studio cameramen shot the day, led by Roman Karmen, Mikhail Oshurkov, and Boris Nebylitsky, from the Pacific coast to Moscow and the Arctic.

Music

D. Pokrass composed the score. Vasily Lebedev-Kumach wrote the song text. Yuri Levitan and Olga Vysotskaya speak the Russian commentary. Quentin Reynolds narrates the English version.

Preservation

The Central Studio museum holds the film, including a 22-minute cut, and lists it as public domain. A file of Den novogo mira is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • The Russian title Den novogo mira means Day of the New World.
  • Levitan and Vysotskaya read the Russian commentary. Vysotskaya is not named in the titles.
  • Assistant directors were K. Kulagina and Maria Spandaryan. Sound was recorded by D. Ovsyanikov and G. Fomin. A. Kuznetsov was production manager.
  • The studio page lists scenes at the Soviet-Turkish and Finnish borders, in the Karakum, on the Commander Islands, in Tallinn, Gori, Khabarovsk, Odessa, Baku, and Kislovodsk.
  • The museum listing marks the film as public domain.
  • IMDb gives the English-language version as 56 minutes.

Scenes

  • The sun rises over the Pacific while it is still the previous evening in Moscow.
  • Levitan and Vysotskaya walk to work at the all-Union radio.
  • Eddie Rosner's jazz band plays as evening comes on in Moscow.

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (День нового мира (1940).webm)