lchadbou-326-26592 "Italiano Brava Gente" the original title of this film (literally, Italian man good people) is what a Russian says, an hour into the story, when his partisans beg their WWII Fascist enemy to lend them a doctor to help an injured fighter. Because it required an international collaboration, including participation by Hollywood producer Joseph Levine, to make this epic, the doctor is one of several leading roles played by American actors, in this case Peter Falk, who despite dubbing of his memorable voice into Italian, gives the most striking characterization. The movie was directed by Giuseppe De Santis, an important figure in the history of neo-realism who is unfortunately not as well known as his more prolific colleagues De Sica, Visconti, or Rossellini. In a series of episodes, such as the one mentioned with the doctor, all drawn from authentic military memoirs, De Santis who also co-wrote brings across the overriding theme that the common Italian soldier, skeptical about his government's attack on the Soviet Union, has actually more sympathy for, and more in common with, the Russian peasants and workers on the other side than with Mussolini's supposed allies the Germans. In one scene an Italian soldier who likes the Communist anthem The Internationale actually plays it on his harmonica which leads to the Russians singing along- a moment comparable to the famous one in "Casablanca" where the Marseillaise is sung in defiance of the Nazis. In contrast, there is an elite group of shock troops, called the "Superarditi," brought in to reinvigorate Il Duce's assault, and the role of their balding, crippled, fanatic officer is here played by another U.S. actor, Arthur Kennedy. I watched this movie partly as an homage to the recently deceased Russian actress, Tatiana Samoilova, who is prominently billed but in the longest subtitled version I've been able to see (137 minutes) has only a couple of big scenes toward the end, as the woman one of the deserting Italians hides with underground; after the Germans, with whom it is mentioned she had been fraternizing, have started their hectic retreat, she is afraid of being caught by her fellow Soviets. While we had a brief glimpse of her with a German earlier, it seems that some of her footage may be among what was cut, when the movie was edited down from its original full length of 156 minutes. While there are a number of vivid images in this film, the climax, in which Cossacks mounted on horses hurtle by against the remaining enemy, is especially impressive.

Michael A. Martinez This is up there with STORM OVER THE PACIFIC as one of the most criminally unappreciated films dealing with the subject of World War 2. To my mind, it may well be the only film that depicts or even mentions the Italian expeditionary force on the Eastern Front battling against the Russians from 1941-1943, largely routed and destroyed along with their Romanian allies during the surrounding of the 6th Army at Stalingrad.The film follows a small unit of the much larger ARMIR force beginning with their hopeful and largely uncontested advance through the Ukraine in 1941. Things get a little wonky with the Germans contesting who gets to claim victory over a hard-fought battle over the Bug River, and even more-so with a unit of Italian Black Shirts led by an unscrupulous Arthur Kennedy and their organized looting. A tacked-on episode involves Peter Falk as a disillusioned Italian medic traded with Russian Partisans to provide some altruistic care in the midst of a lot of embittering carnage and insanity. Toward the end, things turn into an existentially nihilistic death march across the frozen steppes of Russia where the separated soldiers attempt to escape back to the imagined safety of their retreating front lines.Filmed in stark high-contrast black-and-white, the Soviet influence upon this film is very clear with its frequently artistic and experimental approach to the grim subject matter. This clashes a bit when we see it saddled with the expressive physical gesturing and bad dubbing we've become accustomed to from low budget Italian Euro-war movies. The film feels like an odd mish-mash of war epic, exploitation B-movie, and documentary-style art film all in one package so it fails just about as much as it succeeds, but contains more than its fair share of memorable moments.Who can forget the image of the lone Russian girl screaming in the middle of a sea of sunflowers while soldiers charge through... the T-34 machine-gunning bewildered soldiers riding a merry-go-round... the horizon ablaze with Katyusha rocket fire... or the Russians charging their cavalry through the snow into a mechanized column of retreating Axis soldiers?While the film is mostly a collection of loosely connected darkly ironic slices of life on the front, it is most successful when it sticks with history and presents the big battles. Depending on which cut you come across, this film contains a lot of historically accurate reenacting of some of the biggest battles of the early Eastern Front on the largely on locations they actually occurred at. The full cooperation of the Soviet Union was thrown behind this film with lots of tanks, trucks, extras, and armaments generously provided, and really shows in the scope. Unfortunately the filmmakers go too far in trying to play to many masters at once, painting the Soviets as noble heroes, the Germans and Italian Fascists as brutal thugs, and the regular Italian soldiery as patriotic family men who turn into hapless malingerers and deserters once they come to suffer from poor leadership, provisions, and lack of equipment. Much of this may be based on history, but the stereotyping at play becomes increasingly distracting and annoying as the film progresses to the point where it feels like the advancing waves of noble Soviets are invincible and infallible... like an unstoppable typhoon our bewildered protagonists have found themselves caught up in.It's likely the pro-Red stance of this film which caused it to be swept under the carpet and never get much of a release in the United States, coming at the height of the Cold War. For the casual modern viewer or student of history though there's a lot of entertainment and educational value to take away here once one sifts through the propaganda as merely a product of the time of the film's historiography. It almost says more about what was going on in a very politically divided Italy in 1965 than what was going on in Russia in 1941-42. Either way, this awkward and flawed, yet beautifully crafted film certainly has the artistic merit to deserve a wider and cleaned up, definitive release.

Vfmd I know from my family history how accurate and painful this movie is. It shows "Italiano brava gente" which means "italian good people" as the Russians called the Italians .It is an antiwar movie worth watching and thinking about. It is a portrait and reminder of the brutality of the German allies who abandoned an entire army in the most frigid winter Russia had known in a long time. It is a reminder that the complacency of a people allowed a dictator, Mussolini, to send about 120,000 soldiers to Russia without winter clothes and to commit many other crimes. It is a reminder that war is a horrible thing, albeit sometimes just, but never right.

BFo Saw it as a teenager and still remember lots of "action" that ALWAYS ended badly for the good ones. Full of unbelievable incidents, which give the spectator hope - but end in sudden catastrophe or in other sad ways.Have never before or later seen a film, that so much could make a young, male spectator realize, that war is no fun.