How Soviet cinema was shot during the war years

During the years of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet filmmakers released at least 100 films. Most often, the shooting took place in Kazakhstan, where the workers of Mosfilm and Lenfilm were evacuated. Former competitors worked together and made 33 films. How feature films were made during the war – in the material “Kommersant”.

Photos provided by the project “The Immortal Regiment of the Mosfilm TV Channel. The Golden Collection”.

Personnel mobilization

On June 22, 1941, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR announced a general mobilization. In the first eight days, about 5.3 million men and women were called up. Reservations were received by employees of military industries and teachers. Filmmakers went to the front on common grounds.

For example, actor Mikhail Pugovkin was mobilized from the movie theater “The Artamonov Case”. Actor Vladimir Zeldin was drafted into the tank troops when the shooting of the comedy “The Pig and the Shepherd” had not yet been completed. Following him, the director of the film, Ivan Pyryev, volunteered for the front.

In total, 950 employees of Mosfilm went to the front on their own initiative, of which 146 died. Due to lack of footage, many shootings were stopped.

Marriage by sound

Filming of the comedy The Pig and the Shepherd started in the spring of 1941. The work was stopped after the outbreak of the war, but a month later they decided to resume. According to the memoirs of Vladimir Zeldin, Joseph Stalin personally ordered to return the filmmakers from the front and finish the film about peaceful life. The authorities decided that comedies were needed to raise the spirit of a warring country.

Directed by Ivan Pyryev, the film was not about chronology. As a result, he completed all the scenes outside the capital before the war, and filmed the acquaintance of the heroes at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (now VDNKh) during the Battle of Moscow.

Most of all, the work was hindered by shots and air raid signals. On average, they sounded in Moscow 15-20 times a month. Filming was stopped for this time: the creators wrote the sound right on the set, and not in the studio, and extraneous noise interfered with them.

The film The Pig and the Shepherd was first shown in November 1941. In 1942, its creators received the Stalin Prize of the II degree, and the Pravda newspaper published an article stating that the Soviet people were fighting for such a world as it is shown in the painting “The Pig and the Shepherd”.

No competition

In August 1941, filmmakers from the Lenfilm studio were evacuated to Kazakhstan. Ivan Bolshakov, head of the Committee for Cinematography under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, recalled that due to the tightening ring around the city, they took out very little film equipment. There was nowhere to take a new one, the existing cameras were often transferred to documentary operators at the front. From 1941 to 1942, the number of stationary and mobile film cameras in the country almost halved, from 9,200 to 3,512.

So that the work of the Leningrad studio would not stop, in September 1941, Mosfilm and VGIK were evacuated to Kazakhstan along with all the necessary equipment, props and costumes. Since November, the largest film studios-competitors have been working together – under the guise of the Central United Film Studio of Feature Films. In January 1942, two months after the creation of the studio, its first film was released – a motion picture by Konstantin Yudin “Antosha Rybkin” about a cook who became a scout and liberated the village from the Nazis.

Without electricity and heat

In January 1941, Joseph Stalin offered to make a film about Ivan the Terrible. Director Sergei Eisenstein wrote the script for Ivan the Terrible in the summer of 1941 and began filming in February 1943. Film historian Nahum Kleiman calls the film a “military feat”.

In the capital of Kazakhstan, filmmakers were given a local cinema, a new residential building and a newly built Palace of Culture. The premises were converted into pavilions on their own. But they were not heated in winter, and at night the temperature inside dropped to four degrees below zero. In the frame of Sergei Eisenstein’s film “Ivan the Terrible” steam is sometimes seen coming from the mouths of the actors. Many performers wore warm, thick clothes under historical costumes.

The film crew mostly worked at night. The rest of the time, electricity went to military factories.

The construction of the scenery was also more difficult than before the war. Film artists could not find nails, paint, or plywood sheets. As a result, they used improvised materials and local shrubs. A solid base was woven from it and replaced with plywood sheets during the construction of scenery.

The premiere of the first part of Ivan the Terrible took place at the Udarnik cinema on January 20, 1945. For her, the director and members of the film crew received the Stalin Prize. Later, Joseph Stalin criticized the continuation of the picture, noting that Sergei Eisenstein “distracted from history”, “portrayed the guardsmen as the last brats, degenerates.” The second part of the film was released only after the death of the leader.

Authentic props and extras

Ivan Pyryev’s film “At 6 p.m. after the war” was released in November 1944 – a few months before the Victory. According to the scenario, the artilleryman Vasily and the anti-aircraft gunner Varya promised to find each other in Moscow at six o’clock in the evening after the war. The meeting took place near the Stone Bridge.

During the first year, the film was watched by 26 million viewers. Due to the popularity of the painting, the bridge turned into a meeting place for veterans on the real Victory Day, May 9, 1945.

In the first version of the script, the anti-aircraft gunner Varya dies and does not come to the Stone Bridge. But Ivan Pyryev refused the final, which leaves no hope. The director also predicted that the war would end in the spring – the heroine came on a date with lilacs.

Filming of “At 6 p.m. after the war” was partly in the studio. But some episodes were filmed on location – in Istra, recently liberated from the Germans. As a result, the film group almost did not have to modify real landscapes, look for and dress up extras actors. All the scenery was provided by the war: a real armored train, a plane and anti-aircraft gunners appear in the frame.

Request for Happiness

In February 1941 director Konstantin Yudin made the film Hearts of Four. Officials criticized the comedy for its frivolous mood and “out of touch with reality.” Movie screenings were canceled immediately. But the comedy was taken off the shelf again on January 5, 1945.

After the difficult years of the war, the audience was waiting for funny and light stories. At the end of the year, the film was one of the leaders in the box office: “Hearts of Four” was watched by 19.4 million viewers.

Konstantin Yudin shot his new film, Twins, at the end of the war and dedicated it to lost children and orphans. The premiere took place on December 21, 1945. Critics and officials again called the comedy vulgar and frankly unsuccessful. But the audience supported the film with their feet – “Gemini” was watched by a little less than 19 million people in a year.

It was not only Konstantin Yudin who worked on optimistic cinema. At the end of the war, Semyon Timoshenko’s comedy “Heavenly slug” and the film “Cinderella” by Nadezhda Kosheverova and Mikhail Shapiro were also filmed.

Venice prizes

Military cinema from the USSR was also celebrated at international film festivals. The film by Vladimir Petrov “Guilty Without Guilt” is based on the play of the same name by Alexander Ostrovsky. Despite the fact that the shooting took place during the war, the premiere of the melodrama took place after its completion – on September 21, 1945. In the Soviet Union, the film became the leader of the box office. It was watched by about 28.9 million viewers in a year.

Soon Guilty Without Guilt was shown at the 1946 Venice Film Festival. The film review was held for the first time in three years – the organizers took a break because of the war. In Venice, the leader of the Soviet box office received a brass prize. In total, the jury then awarded seven feature films from the USSR with medals.

The Central United Film Studio ceased to exist in the second half of 1944, when the front moved away from the capitals, and Mosfilm and Lenfilm were returned home. Leaving Kazakhstan, filmmakers left a lot of equipment there. In the future, she helped develop local cinema. In total, four new studios were opened during the war years: Kazakhfilm, Kirghizfilm, Lithuanian Film Studio and Tallinnfilm.

Ignat Vorontsov