In and of itself, it's a good film. Not a great film, but a good film.
However, the reference to a "free people" in the opening was as sickening today as it should have been in 1944. In fact the first SSRs invaded by the Germans (especially the Ukraine) welcomed the Germans as liberators.
Being produced in 1944, it doesn't show the thousands, tens of thousands, of Soviet citizens murdered or exiled to Siberia by their fellow Soviet "liberators" because they stayed behind. Russian soldiers captured by the Germans who were fortunate enough to survive the war were sent to gulags because they surrendered or were captured. Nikita Kruschev earned the nickname "Butcher of the Ukraine" for the murder and/or deportation of millions of Ukrainians sick of both German and Soviet rule. After the "Great Patriotic War," not during.
The film is pure propaganda despite the fact that Hollywood, and any American who cared to do the research, knew what the Soviets were doing to their own people.
Ignore the political context (or lack thereof in the film) and it's an acceptable yarn, typical of its genre.
However, the reference to a "free people" in the opening was as sickening today as it should have been in 1944. In fact the first SSRs invaded by the Germans (especially the Ukraine) welcomed the Germans as liberators.
Being produced in 1944, it doesn't show the thousands, tens of thousands, of Soviet citizens murdered or exiled to Siberia by their fellow Soviet "liberators" because they stayed behind. Russian soldiers captured by the Germans who were fortunate enough to survive the war were sent to gulags because they surrendered or were captured. Nikita Kruschev earned the nickname "Butcher of the Ukraine" for the murder and/or deportation of millions of Ukrainians sick of both German and Soviet rule. After the "Great Patriotic War," not during.
The film is pure propaganda despite the fact that Hollywood, and any American who cared to do the research, knew what the Soviets were doing to their own people.
Ignore the political context (or lack thereof in the film) and it's an acceptable yarn, typical of its genre.