This movie has much to commend it: a slice of history that Americans often don't encounter; tense wartime drama and excitement; Gregory Peck's heroic strength; Tamara Toumanova's sensitive beauty; a slice-of-life mix of supporting characters. A standard I apply to movies is that they should show me things I have never seen before, and "Days of Glory" fully satisfies that requirement.
However, this should not make the viewer forget what the movie was intended to be -- World War II pro-Soviet propaganda. Much Hollywood output in the early '40s was aimed at supporting the war effort (consider all the combat and home-front movies from that time), and for a nation at war this is totally understandable.
But this film, like some others of that era (e.g., "Mission to Moscow", "The North Star", "Song of Russia") was explicitly intended to generate sympathy for and solidarity with our then Soviet allies. This too would be understandable if it did not also attempt to obliterate the historical fact that these "allies" were no less evil and murderous than the Nazis.
This does not mean a modern viewer should not watch this film (just as the propaganda should not keep the movie fan away from "Alexander Nevsky" or "Potemkin"), but when watching this otherwise entertaining film the viewer should keep in mind its role in supporting the system that would become an even greater threat to life and freedom in the 20th Century than the enemy we were fighting.
However, this should not make the viewer forget what the movie was intended to be -- World War II pro-Soviet propaganda. Much Hollywood output in the early '40s was aimed at supporting the war effort (consider all the combat and home-front movies from that time), and for a nation at war this is totally understandable.
But this film, like some others of that era (e.g., "Mission to Moscow", "The North Star", "Song of Russia") was explicitly intended to generate sympathy for and solidarity with our then Soviet allies. This too would be understandable if it did not also attempt to obliterate the historical fact that these "allies" were no less evil and murderous than the Nazis.
This does not mean a modern viewer should not watch this film (just as the propaganda should not keep the movie fan away from "Alexander Nevsky" or "Potemkin"), but when watching this otherwise entertaining film the viewer should keep in mind its role in supporting the system that would become an even greater threat to life and freedom in the 20th Century than the enemy we were fighting.