Arrivano i Russi, arrivano i Russi

How well I remember seeing The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming way back in theater and enjoying this wonderful satire on Cold War paranoia. Norman Jewison put together a great cast of scene stealing players and it's great to see these guys try to top each other.

A Russian submarine keeping an eye on our naval movements off the American shore runs aground on the shore of eastern Long Island which is quite like it was in 1966, sparsely populated with small towns. Non speaking English Captain Theodore Bikel sends Lieutenant Alan Arkin ashore with some men including young seaman John Philip Law without any real instructions.

People spot these Russian speaking sailors and the panic starts. Arkin arrives at the house of Carl Reiner who is a composer with wife Eva Marie Saint and son Sheldon Collins and niece Andrea Dromm. Law makes his own separate peace with Dromm. Nice piece it is too.

Arkin and Reiner are great together, Arkin with his fractured English and Reiner trying to both be civilized and live up to his son's expectations of killing the dirty Reds who've invaded.

When word gets out Brian Keith as sheriff and deputy Jonathan Winters have to compete with Paul Ford at his blusteriest who is ready to form a militia on the spot. What an advertisement for Second Amendment absolutists.

Lots of funny stuff involving these Russians stuck in a place they've been taught to fear as enemies and the Americans who've been cut off in this remote part of Long Island who are paranoid over an invasion. Let's say a humanitarian situation brings this part of the Cold War to a complete thaw.

But I will say that I doubt in those days there was a Soviet equivalent. Is there a film out there called The Yankees Are Coming The Yankees Are Coming.

This is still a very funny film.