NR | 1h 26m | Drama, Romance, War | 1944
During World War II, Soviet Russia might be wrapped in heroic terms for American moviegoers. A few years later, the same hammer-and-sickle world became the looming enemy in American classrooms, speeches, spy thrillers, and living-room arguments.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany unleashed Operation Barbarossa, invading Russia, and Washington needed Stalin’s armies to grind Hitler down from the east. President Franklin D. Roosevelt seemed far too warm toward Stalin, or at least far too willing to believe that the terrible dictator could be managed.
The brutal facts of communism were pushed off-screen while the alliance held, since wartime necessity gave politicians and studios a convenient excuse to look past the millions of corpses.
“Days of Glory” comes straight out of that uneasy bargain. Released in 1944, the film presents Soviet partisans fighting German invaders in the Russian countryside. The whole setup does carry an honest anti-Nazi force, because Hitler’s invasion was indeed monstrous. However, it also carries the rosy wartime fiction of Soviet nobility, delivered before the Cold War made such softness look absurd.
Although that can be somewhat understood in wartime terms, the harder part to swallow is the political sanitizer sprayed all over the setting. America and the Soviet Union were never natural kin in theory or in practice. Capitalism built freedom into everyday life in a way communism never could, and the years after Hitler’s defeat made that difference impossible to hide.
The film is worth approaching as a wartime artifact, though it can’t be looked at seriously as any sort of accurate history lesson. It tells us what Hollywood wanted audiences to feel in 1944, and what the industry found convenient to leave outside the frame.
Behind Nazi Lines
The film opens in the Russian countryside after the Nazi invasion. Vladimir (Gregory Peck) commands a small Soviet fighting band hidden beyond German control. His men survive from order to order, striking at patrols, guarding their shelter, and waiting for the next message from their superiors. Their fragile arrangement changes when Nina (Tamara Toumanova), a ballerina cut off from her troupe, arrives at their secret camp.
She comes from the world of the theater, only to find herself among armed fighters who judge every newcomer by the danger they might bring. Sasha (Alan Reed), Yelena (Maria Palmer), Fedor (Hugo Haas), Semyon (Lowell Gilmore), and Mitya (Glen Vernon) fill out Vladimir’s group, each tied to the camp and the fight against the German advance.
The German war machine eventually closes in around them, pushing the group toward a brutal finale.
A Soviet Ally Picture
“Days of Glory” has some obvious issues, but it isn’t necessarily dead-on-arrival. The politics are wrapped in wartime convenience, the romance sometimes feels pasted in by the studio, and Peck is still finding his screen chops in his film debut. Even so, director Jacques Tourneur gives the picture enough atmosphere, movement, and visual bite to keep it from becoming a museum label with rifles.
Peck is raw here. His voice has command, his face photographs well, but some of his line readings still feel like a young actor testing the room. That works against him in a few scenes, then helps him in others. Vladimir is meant to be severe, dutiful, and half-buried under responsibility, so Peck’s early stiffness accidentally becomes part of the character.
Toumanova has the flashier entrance because Nina brings the theater straight into the war zone: a ballerina (Toumanova was also a real-life ballerina) among rifles, boots, and frozen breath. Some of the romance feels tailored for the box office, but it gives the picture a human angle that keeps the partisan side from becoming a one-long slog.
Modern viewers have to deal with the Soviet packaging, as “Days of Glory” softens what shouldn’t have been softened, and no review should pretend otherwise. However, the film can still be watched with clear eyes. We can admire the craft where it works, note the historical blind spots, enjoy Peck’s first-ever screen outing, and remember how quickly a wartime friendship turned into a sobering Cold War reality.
“Days of Glory” is available on Plex and ok.ru.
‘Days of Glory’
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Gregory Peck, Tamara Toumanova, Alan Reed
Not Rated
Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes
Release Date: June 16, 1944
Rated: 3 stars out of 5
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