...done in the "documentary" style then used by Fox, even using the same narrator used in other, similar pictures, such as "The House on 92nd Street" from a few years earlier.
This picture shows much effort and talent, but somehow it doesn't quite come off, perhaps because it was clearly approached as a propaganda film, almost shrill in its pro-Western slant, just as the Cold War was beginning.
What I noticed most about the picture was its artful and effective use of music by Soviet composers, without crediting them except in the dialogue. As a musician I am shocked and appalled to learn that these composers' music was used without their permission. The Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev, which is quoted extensively, had only been given its Western premiere a few years before this picture was released, and was then given a landmark 1945 recording, by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, for Victor Records. Using the music of these composers without their knowledge or permission is like stealing!
I don't understand how a serious musician like Alfred Newman could have been party to this. Perhaps he thought he was making a patriotic, pro-Western statement, but as an artist he should have known how these composers would feel.
This picture shows much effort and talent, but somehow it doesn't quite come off, perhaps because it was clearly approached as a propaganda film, almost shrill in its pro-Western slant, just as the Cold War was beginning.
What I noticed most about the picture was its artful and effective use of music by Soviet composers, without crediting them except in the dialogue. As a musician I am shocked and appalled to learn that these composers' music was used without their permission. The Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev, which is quoted extensively, had only been given its Western premiere a few years before this picture was released, and was then given a landmark 1945 recording, by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, for Victor Records. Using the music of these composers without their knowledge or permission is like stealing!
I don't understand how a serious musician like Alfred Newman could have been party to this. Perhaps he thought he was making a patriotic, pro-Western statement, but as an artist he should have known how these composers would feel.