Counter-Attack

I was 7 years old when I saw this movie in 1945. the war swirled around me and this was a movie about success against an enemy of America. At 7, you have no political insights as to what is going on. It's the "good guys vs. the bad guys", the "cowboys vs. the indians" from a little kids perspective, and I was for the good guys, which in this case were the Russians. I guess it was OK to root for the Russians as long as we had a common enemy. This was my first exposure to propaganda movies, but not my last. When Paul Muni and Larry parks were identified as "Commie supporters" after the war was over, they paid a price for what they believed in. With the Communist conspiracy lurking, this hysteria impacted and destroyed a lot of people, a sad day for our country. Obviously, this movie made an impact on me, as it still is one of my favorites, all politics aside. From a historical perspective, it showed, that the Russians weren't always our enemies, a fact we would rather not acknowledge today. I guess it will always hold true, that "the enemy of my enemy, is my friend".

An engrossing WW2 film set somewhere on the Russian Front with Paul Muni as a member of a Russian assault team who is trapped in a collapsed building with seven German soldiers, one of whom is an officer. Along with him is Margarithe Chapman as a Russian partisan. His character is in the lead part of a big Russian counter-attack that is to be launched across a river on a bridge that's being built eighteen inches under the surface of the water. The setting in the collapsed building with the German soldiers whom he has captured and is trying to extract information from is beautifully done with tension and humor amidst fading light, all captured by cinematographer James Wong Howe, one of the greats of B&W photography (and color, too if you've seen Picnic). Maybe Muni was a tad bit better in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, but he's awfully good here as a crafty Russian fighting sleep deprivation and fading light. The Germans are great as well, each getting enough lines to establish himself. Margarithe Chapman's part as Muni's comrade captures the idea of equality in the ranks among men and women. She's tough but tender.

During World War II, Hollywood did something they never would have dared do before the war or only a couple years after the war...they made Pro-Soviet movies. In films such as "The North Star" and "Song of Russia", the Russian people are portrayed as noble, decent and, above all, America's friends. Why? Well, because the Soviet Union was an ally of the USA during much of the war...and the films were propaganda pieces aimed as softening the views Americans had of the USSR (which had often been very negative before this). "Counter-Attack" is another of these pro-Soviet films. Now this isn't saying it's bad...but it did serve the purpose of improving American perceptions of these allies.

The plot of this one is very simple. A pair of Russian soldiers are trapped under debris in the basement of a building...and there are about a half dozen Germans trapped with them. Alexei (Paul Muni) has gotten the drop on them...disarming them and taking them prisoner. But he cannot escape...and while they are trapped, he decides to ask these Germans questions, as he has good reason to believe that one of them is an officer in disguise as an enlisted man. But time is working against him, as he cannot sleep or they'll kill him. And, he hopes that his Russian comrades come before the Germans do to rescue them.

This film isn't as wide-eyed and saccharine as the pro-Soviet films I listed above. Instead, it's intelligent without laying the propaganda on too thickly. As a result, it's a very good film...and isn't yet another silly pro-Russian story. The only negative is that the story, at times, tends to be rather talky.

An astringent war film atmospherically shot by Oscar-winning cameraman James Wong Howe with an attention to detail it doubtless owes to its stage origins.

As befits a film scripted by one of the Hollywood Ten, one of the Russians is a noble-looking young woman with a rifle, while the Nazis are an even more than usually devious and shifty bunch. One of the shiftiest is 'the Professor', played by Ludwig Donath, who ironically twice played fellow cast-member Larry Parks' father Cantor Yoelson before they both joined screenwriter John Howard Lawson on the blacklist.

Recently saw this movie on TCM. Very powerful. It concerns a Russian soldier (Paul Muni) and a female resistance agent (well played by Marguerite Chapman, who I'm not familiar with) trapped in a bombed factory (?) with seven Germans. The director has some better known films, including "Four Feathers." Muni is well known. The others appear to be character actors.

It becomes a battle of wills, most of the action taking place in a condensed space -- the small area they are trapped in. But, meanwhile, we also get some excellent shots of the happenings outside in the battlefield and thereabouts. These add a nice touch to the movie, realistically so as well (a sort of newsreel feel in some cases).

The movie has a 1945 publication date but is played basically straight. It is always interesting as well when Russians are the good guys.