Days of Glory

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in North Africa where large numbers of indigènes (French Algerian Tirailleurs as well as Tunisian or Moroccan Goumiers) have been recruited into the French First Army of the Free French Forces, that has been formed to liberate France of the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Saïd, an impoverished goat herder, joins the 7th Algerian Tirailleur Regiment. With him are several other Berber men, including Yassir, who is seeking booty so that he can return home and his brother can marry; Messaoud, who wants to marry and settle in France; and literate Corporal Abdelkader, who is fighting for the equality and rights of the colonized Algerians.
Soon the men, dressed in lend-lease American uniforms meet Sergeant Martinez, a battle-hardened pied noir, who trains them before leading them on their first mission in the Italian Campaign. Their mission is to capture a heavily-defended mountain from the Germans. It soon becomes clear that their white commanding officer is using the colonial troops as cannon fodder to identify artillery targets. The African troops eventually succeed, but the tactics result in high casualties among the colonial troops. When asked by a French war correspondent about his thoughts on the losses, the white colonel replies, "today was a great victory for the Free French Forces".
The troops of the 7th ATR are transported to France to participate in Operation Dragoon to liberate the south of France. While aboard ship, a white cook refuses to give tomatoes to black soldiers. Abdelkader calls for equality but the mutiny is averted when Martinez and the company Captain assures everyone will be treated the same.
On arrival at Marseille, the colonial troops are greeted as heroes. Messaoud, meets and courts Irène, a French woman; When his regiment leaves, he promises to write and to return. She says she'll wait for him and they will marry. However, due to French censorship of mail between Arab men and white French women, Irène never learns Messaoud's fate.
Saïd becomes Martinez's orderly, for which the other soldiers call him "wench". Eventually, he snaps and holds a knife to Messaoud's throat. Abdelkader calms the situation, but Saïd makes it clear that in this segregated world the French authorities will not give their African soldiers anything. While drinking with the sergeant, Saïd mentions they are similar, as he had seen the picture of Martinez with his Arab mother; the NCO—a self-hating Arab—attacks him, and threatens to kill Saïd if he reveals this secret.
The colonial troops discover that while they are not allowed breaks, the white Free French Forces are given leave to return home in France. Eventually, the troops are told they are going home, but it's a ruse; instead, they are billeted behind the lines and given a ballet performance. Bored and disillusioned, most leave the tent and hold a meeting outside decrying the injustice. Martinez challenges the group, led by Abdelkader, and a fight starts.
Early the next morning, French MPs bring Messaoud to a temporary stockade where Abdelkader is also being held. Messaoud says he was arrested for trying to go back to Marseille and find Irène. Abdelkader is brought before the white Colonel who tells him that he needs him to go on a special mission: to take ammunition to American troops fighting in the Lorraine Campaign and also be the first French troops to liberate Alsace. The white officer promises that Abdelkader and the other African soldiers will get the rewards and recognition that success in this operation demands. Later, the white company captain tells the corporal that the colonel will keep his word.
Most of the men are killed by a booby trap, including Yassir's brother, as they cross the German lines. Martinez has been severely injured. Most of the troops want to return to their side, but Abdelkader rallies them to push on. Eventually, the corporal, Saïd, Messaoud, Yassir and Martinez reach an Alsatian village. Over the next few days the soldiers ingratiate themselves into the area, and Saïd befriends a milkmaid. A battle begins when a company of Germans arrive, and everyone except Abdelkader is killed. Messaoud is badly hurt by a Panzerschreck and then shot by a German rifleman. Saïd attempts to evacuate Martinez, but they are both shot by the Panzerschreck, killing Saïd and further wounding Martinez, who is quickly finished off. Abdelkader and Yassir attempt to flee, but Yassir is shot in the back by a German. However just as the corporal is cornered, more colonial troops arrive and drive the Germans out of the village.
As columns of Free French forces begin to move through the area, Abdelkader sees the colonel passing in his jeep, but the white commanding officer ignores him and he is pulled away by a staff officer who asks him where his unit is. When Abdelkader says they are all dead, he is simply assigned to another white NCO. As he walks out of the village, he passes a film cameraman filming only white troops standing by the liberated villagers.
The movie then moves to the present day. An elderly Abdelkader visits a war cemetery in Alsace to visit the graves of his comrades: Martinez, Saïd, Yassir and Messaoud. He then returns to his small rundown flat in modern-day France. The film then concludes with the caption to say that the servicemen from France's former colonies living in France had their pensions frozen in 1959 shortly before their various countries of origin's independence.

Tags: revenge, violence

Review:
Days of Glory was the first relatively big budget film Jacques Tourneur was given opportunity to direct after success of his horror trilogy (Cat People, I walked with the Zombie and Leopard Man).The particularity of this picture is that it was a debut film for all of it's cast of actors including Gregory Peck who later became one of Hollywood's major stars.
Days of Glory is also one of those few openly pro-soviet films that were made in Hollywood during WW-2 when United States and Soviet Union were allies in fighting against Nazi Germany.
But this fact doesn't diminish the quality of the film, though some propaganda elements are present in the story, which is about a group of Russian partisans fighting guerilla war against German Nazi troops in occupied Russia.Overall, Days of Glory is an interesting WW-2 drama with a good story and a cast of interesting characters brought to life by a group of wonderful actors in their first starring role in a film.
This tribute to Russian resistance in World War II gave Gregory Peck his opportunity for a starring film screen debut.
Still Peck as the stoic and brooding Russian peasant resistance leader certainly had star quality written all over him.Now that the Cold War is over we can appreciate the Russian contribution to defeating Nazism without getting hung up over Communism.
Where you see the German Army in the Ukraine in Days of Glory is roughly how far they advanced into the Soviet Union.
The Russian people took a tremendous toll and it was the great worry of both Roosevelt and Churchill up to the Allied invasion of Normandy that Stalin might just make a separate peace.
If he had the world would be very different.Peck's love interest was dancer Tamara Toumanova who plays a dancer caught up in the partisan movement.
As an actress she's a great dancer, she's seen to better advantage in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain where she concentrates on dancing.Days of Glory did get an Oscar nomination for Special Effects, but despite that it's essentially an A picture from a B picture studio, RKO.
Still it's not a bad last stand story and a decent enough debut for Gregory Peck..
Depects the sacrafice the russian peoples army made fighting the Nazis.
(Some Spoilers) Despite the high hopes and bombastic claims by Adolf Hitler and the German High Command about achieving a swift and total victory in the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler's Wehrmacht which racked up spectacular results in the summer and fall of 1941.
As cold and freezing weather set in the invading Axis forces started to bog down due to the severe Russian winter and stubborn and fanatical Soviet resistance.
The Russian partisans were groups of lightly armed but highly motivated and disciplined men and women who ambushed German, and their allies, troops and disrupted the German supply and lines of communications.
From the start of the war with the USSR on June 21, 1941 to when the German Army was finally driven out of Russia in the early spring of 1944 Russian partisans inflected over 500,000 casualties on the German army and it's allies.
The film "Days of Glory" is about one of these Russian partisan bands, operating out of the swamps marshes and forests around the town of Yasnaya Polyana in Central Russia, led by Soviet Red Army officer Vladimir (Gregory Peck).
Far better then most movies made by Hollywood during WWII "Days of Glory" didn't overdo the Russian heroics as well as the evil and viciousness of the invading Germans.
The bravest thing that happened in the movie, in regard to the Russian partisans, was when young Mitya, Glen Veron, was captured by the German Army.
Non the less the Germans weren't as bad as in movies like "The North Star".
Or even like in the film "Till We Meet Again" where they, the Germans, raped and inducted Catholic Nuns into brothels to serve and entertain the German Army.The movie has a very sad and touching love story with Vladimir and the two women who were in love with him Yelena & Nina, Maria Palmer & Tamara Toumanova, and resulted in one of them getting killed by the Germans.
Yelena was a hardened guerrilla fighter who killed over 60 German soldiers during the war.
Nina was a sweet sensitive and no-violent young women who was a star dancer in the Russian Bellet before the war began and a Russian guerrilla fighter after it started.
Even though the war action in "Days of Glory" was very sparse when it did come on the screen it was awesome.
With a spectacular German ammunition train explosion and a tremendous shoot-out with the attacking German Army, at the very end of the movie.
With the Russian Partisans, led by Vladimir and Nina, fighting for their lives with mostly home-made guns and grenades against German tanks planes and artillery pieces.
"Days of Glory" did in no way celebrate the brutal Joeseph Stalin regime that ran Russia during WWII as well as before and after the war.
The film "Days of Glory" was about a people, the Russian people, raising up against an invader and fighting him with everything that they had at their disposal, as meager as it was; in order to drive him, the Germans, out of their homes and land for good and forever..
Vladimir (Gregory Peck) leads a group of guerrillas against the Nazi invaders in the forests of Russia.
It finally comes with the message "The snow will fall".The film is well acted with tense moments, eg, when the German soldier makes his escape with only Nina (Tamara Toumanova) in the hideout to defend herself alone against him.
There are poignant scenes including Nina's silence when Mitya (Glenn Vernon) is taken by the Germans and the film has a memorable ending.
When I viewed this film I was quite surprised to see a very young Gregory Peck,"Spellbound",'45, give an outstanding performance in a black and white film about a few Russian citizens defending their country against the Nazi take over of their town.
The Nazi Army utilized many tanks in order to take over this town and out numbered the Russian's by a very large percentage.
Tamara Toumanova and Gregory Peck were a great couple in this film and it is too bad she decided to marry the director of this film right after production.
The Russian German war was the greatest battle ever fought and strangely has been ignored by Hollywood.
This film, made when the Russians had yet to reach Berlin, was probably a propaganda piece of its time and suffers from some sugary Hollywood treatment.
Whilst we can respect this well-directed movie we can also ask why Hollywood has yet to record its tribute to the amazing determination of the Russian people who were not particularly well led yet overcame such enormous odds.
Gregory Peck is the leader of a group of Russian Guerillas who are fighting the invading Nazis.
(I suppose the last copy fell to pieces in the projection room of Channel 62 to Sioux Falls or some such place.) Being Peck's first film and also his first as a leading man, you'll just have to take my word that it was worth watching!
In an attempt to rehabilitate our former enemies, the Russians, into our allies (WWII did create some strange bedfellows), Hollywood produced several horrid films that portrayed the Russians as "just like us", while in fact, their leader was one of the greatest mass murderers in human history.
The movie is shameless in how positively it portrays the Russian people--as 100% wonderful and noble.
While I do applaud the bravery of those Russians who fought the Germans, it was NOT generally due to love of Stalinism that motivated them, but survival.So is there anything that makes watching this film worth while?
That's because you'll see a very young Gregory Peck BEFORE he was a star.
During the 1941 invasion of Russia by the Nazi's the odds are overwhelming as the German army marches across the land.
However resistance among the brave Russians makes up with heart what it lacks in sophistication and size.One such outfit is a small group of guerrilla soldiers lead by Vladimir.
The new arrival of an 'outsider' creates tensions within the group but the capture of a German soldier offers the possibility of information and the potential for a demoralising strike at the invading army as well as his attempted escape helping the group trust one another again.Perhaps understandably the Russian/German front has been largely ignored by Hollywood in the past few decades and even now it is possible that Days Of Glory is only increasing in circulation because the embarrassment factor has faded.
During the cold war, nobody really wanted a WWII propaganda piece that shows the Russians (our enemy) as upright, heroic and American (!).
However now we are all in the War on Terror together, I notice this film has started being seen more than it was ten years ago.
Essentially this is a big 'thank you' to the Russian soldiers by putting them in a story where they talk endlessly about why they are fighting while falling in love, looking heroic and sacrificing their lives.
It is as basic and uninspiring as all that sounds and it smacks of a film that puts propaganda first and entertainment second.This is not to say that it doesn't try because it does, with some action, some human drama and the standard wartime romance.
Peck shows the sort of furrowed brow and screen presence that made him a famous leading man while the rest of the cast do OK in average characters who are either jovial, heroic or brave depending on what point the film is trying to get across.Overall this is an interesting film because it is unusual to see an American propaganda film bigging up the Russians.
Pray silence, workers and peasants, for a "cast of new personalities" headed by the debut of "Mr Gregory Peck, distinguished actor on the New York stage".A suitably solemn intro for the late Mr P, who supplies a characteristically cigar-store-Indianesque turn as the darkly handsome Russian dam-builder turned train-buster, heading a WW2 band of partisans (i.e., terrorists).
(By the same logic Hollywood should now be shooting films justifying Iraqi guerilla resistance to the Americo-British occupation, but don't hold your breath.) The unpalatable truth that many in the western Soviet Union welcomed and collaborated with the Germans has to be evaded.
Vladimir (Gregory Peck) is the heroic commander.
The Russians are still allies and there is a fair amount of propaganda work involved in this.
Yes. Was Russia our ally in World War II?
Without Russia we could not have won World War II.The Soviet regime was evil but Russia is one of America's oldest and most effective allies in good times.
This is not necessarily about the movie "Days of Glory" but it should remind people that we need to know more about our history.
Curiously late film for Russian propaganda.
"Days of Glory" is a story about a Russian resistance group on the Eastern Front in World War II.
This was one of a few pro-Soviet films Hollywood made during the war.
All were propaganda films to reassure Americans of the role Russia was playing in helping defeat Nazi Germany.
It seems that most Hollywood studios made a film to show and build support for the Soviet Union as an ally in the war.
The Hollywood nod to the Russians began in May 1943, with a Warner Brothers' film, "Mission to Moscow." Others that followed were "The North Star" in 1943 by RKO, "Three Russian Girls" in 1943 by United Artists, "The Boy from Stalingrad" in 1943 by Columbia, "The Song of Russia" in 1944 by MGM, and "Counter-Attack" in 1945 by Columbia.
None of these films stand out or show much of the reality of the Russian efforts in WWII.
Not until 2001 in "Enemy at the Gates," do we have an American film that shows some of the horror of the war in Russia, and the sacrifices of the Russian people.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union other very good Russian and eastern European films have been made about the war on the Eastern Front.What I find curious about "Days of Glory," is its June 16, 1944 release date.
The movie covers a time of the resistance forces up until the major Soviet counter-attack.
Indeed, was it wise to do any more trumpeting of the Russians with what we already knew then about the Soviet Union – unless there were some other reasons?It's true that the American intelligence effort was relatively new and not yet very well-grounded at the time.
So, here we have the U.S. government and Hollywood interested in building up the image of the Soviet Union as our ally in fighting the Germans – not before the war, but well into it when the Allies in the West were attacking on all fronts.
All of these things had been reported, and yet the U.S. and Hollywood were still putting out propaganda films in support of Russia late in the war..
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..
Perhaps one of the reasons the world isn't( And may it never happen) a nuked out wasteland is the fact that the Soviets had fought a savage four year war on its own home soil and spent the better part of twenty years hiding the damage done to it.
A scarred but comparatively healthy Soviet Union might have went to war during the Cuban Missle Crisis with catastrophic results for the world( Paris Hilton the glow in the dark two headed freak come to mind) Back on subject this film along with "Song Of Russia" was an ode to the Russians for now being on the "right" side.
I'm surprised everyone involved in this pro-Soviet propaganda didn't end up getting blacklisted.
It's nothing less than a miracle that a ''star of the NY stage" as Peck is billed here in his debut went on to have an actual film career.
But 15 minutes after the war ended this film should have been incinerated for heating fuel.
Although obviously intended to be a wartime morale booster, the story didn't pull punches - good ol' Gregory Peck as the partisan leader, for instance, deciding to save ammunition by bludgeoning a German prisoner to death with a rifle butt.
The story and the realism goes a bit haywire in the last few minutes of the film, but it's forgivable given the fact that the war was still going on.
Russian soldiers captured by the Germans who were fortunate enough to survive the war were sent to gulags because they surrendered or were captured.
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..
Although it's remembered as Gregory Peck's debut,his character is not really very interesting.Nina's and Mitya's love affair (without a single kiss or a word of love) is very touching: the girl giving an impromptu performance before the young boy who don't know what a theater is ,and this wonderful moment when Nina tells the little sister about the death of her brother/hero ("he was smiling,he was happy,his name will live in the history books").All was probably filmed in studios and the low budget gives the movie an eerie atmosphere ,which is not surprising from a director such as Jacques Tourneur ("cat people" " curse of the demon").The David vs Goliath ending is rather impressive ,considering the limitations the director was working under.A propaganda movie,but an endearing one..
Gregory Peck began his illustrious film career with this 1944 film depicting the Soviet Union defending their land from Nazi invaders.
Peck leads a group of partisans who work to do damage to the Germans.This is a story of self-sacrifice on the part of partisans and there is basically no time for tears with destruction reigning in on all of them at every turn.There is time for brief romance between Peck and ballerina Tamara Toumanova, who joins the group and soon shows her mettle in shooting a German soldier.Love for their freedom has the town people sacrifice the life of a 15 year old when they refuse to tell the invading Germans what is about to occur..