Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bubba N/A Look: This film IS propaganda, but it certainly isn't Soviet propaganda. I think it is clear from watching the film disinterestedly and/or reading ALL of the transcripts of Ayn Rand's HUAC testimony that it was American wartime propaganda aiming at 1) strengthening political ties with its then-ally Soviets, and 2) convincing the American's that they should support the joint effort with the Russians against Germany. The US was too afraid to admit to the American people that they, like, Churchill said, had to work with the devil to defeat Hitler; they used propaganda film instead (ad not just here, but overtly as part of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series). Further, I think it is probable, as a previous poster mentioned, that they are only guilty of writing a very ill-conceived "love knows no bounds" kind of war time love story; this is just a year or so after Casablanca, after all! The movie certainly was picked up, partly on the basis of the love-knows-no-bounds angle, but more overtly b/c, as the awful Robert Taylor pointed out in his own HUAC testimony, the request came from the US State department.

ideaconduit Anyone know where I can get it? I've been trying for years. It's a pity, as I'm a Russophile and as such am interested in all historical/period pieces without having to label them as propaganda. After all, when WE do it, we call it Education. It's only when others do it that we call it Propaganda. Need proof? Geroge W. Bush and all the hateful lies. We live in a purely propagandized state. This website asks for 10 lines of text in order to get posted, but all I want to know is where I can get a copy of this film of my own. It made an impression on me three years ago when Teddy Baby aired it (more than once, too, and I missed the opportunity to record it).

haridam0 It seems HUAC in '47 took depictions of life in the Soviet Union as portrayed in "Song of Russia," '43, much too seriously.Anyone looking at this film could tell it was a romantic tale the writer contrived to tell a love story against all odds.Robert Taylor seemed on familiar ground here. Only four years earlier, in "Waterloo Bridge," he'd found a love in war torn England. She was a classical artist who fell madly in love with him. In "Song of Russia" both he and his love are classical artists who make beautiful music together.Like "Bridge," "Russia" is photographed in sharp black and white, and the film is peppered with lots of musical interludes, mostly by Tchaikovsky. Taylor's "orchestral conducting" was well coached (save for a "lost" left arm) and Susan Peter's "concerto playing" was effectively "mimed." (One of Jerome Kern's most haunting songs, "And Russia Is Her Name," is given a less than adequate rendition.) It was fun to hear John Hodiak's initial Russian accent finally give way to no accent at all. And the village people do all the stereotypical things, like sing happy rounds while returning from the fields, and performing specialty ethnic dances at evening vodka fests.Throw in the start of WW2 and the drama's intensified. Still, the power of the lovers' affection is too strong and ultimately that love triumphs.

denisswift This was the first film that I can recall seeing, way back in the 1940s. I was about 6 or 7 years old at the time (I'm now 66). I can remember nothing of the rose-tinted picture of Stalin's Russia described in John Barnes' comments.In fact, I can recall little of the plot, other than that it featured an orchestral conductor and extracts from Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto. Thus, the film introduced me to Tchaikovsky and classical music and, for that, I am eternally grateful.