Not only "T-34": Soviet films about tanks and the Great Patriotic War, which are definitely worth watching

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Among the huge number of military films, films about tankers occupy a special place. Perhaps because it was these gallant guys who were the first to break into the cities, freeing them, and it was the infantry who were waiting for the tankers when they needed support in battle. In this review, films about tanks and about tankers, filmed during the Soviet era. Then there were still no stunning special effects that today so attract viewers, but there was something different in these films, much more important, shrillness and historical truth.

1. "Tank Klim Voroshilov-2"

Year of creation: 1964

Director: Igor Sheshukov

The picture was based on the story of the same name by Valery Zalotukha. The events described in the film take place at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. A graduate of a tank school finds a tank abandoned in the first days of the war. Together with his comrades, he repairs a combat vehicle, and in search of fuel, the crew of "Klim Voroshilov-2" ends up in a small town, which turned out to be on the very border of hostilities.

And then the German offensive begins, and the young fighters face a difficult task: to follow the original plan and catch up with the Red Army, or to defend the town and its inhabitants. This was their first and only fight.

2. "Lark"

Year of creation: 1964

Director: Nikita Kurikhin, Leonid Menaker

Leonid Menaker, one of the film's directors, recalled that the publication in Komsomolskaya Pravda prompted him to make a film about the feat of captured tankers. In the essay "The Captain's Feat" it was told that in 1942 the Germans really wanted to know the quality of the T-34 armor, and for this they drove captured tanks to the tank training ground, put captured Soviet soldiers in them and fired at the equipment with armor-piercing shells.

One of the crews managed to start the tank and escape the Nazis' fire. But when the crew literally flew up to the saving bridge, the tankers saw a group of children. To be saved, the kids would have to be crushed. For Soviet soldiers, the choice was obvious.

It is interesting that a real "thirty-four" model of 1942 was filmed in the film, which was brought to St. Petersburg from Transcarpathia and restored especially for filming.

The film was highly praised by war veterans, who noted that the picture was convincing and very reliable. And indeed it is. Indeed, in the creation of this film in 1964, the most real front-line soldiers took part. One of them is the scriptwriter Sergei Orlov, who went to the front as a volunteer and almost burned down in a tank. And he is the author of the words to the song "He was buried in the globe of the earth …", which was performed in the film by Maya Kristalinskaya.

3. "War is like war"

Year of creation: 1968 Director: Viktor TregubovichThe film is dedicated to the heroes of the Third Guards Tank Army, which took part in the first operation at Orel, reached Berlin and took part in the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War.

According to the plot, junior lieutenant Alexander Maleshkin, who until recently was the most ordinary tractor driver, must accept the first battle in his life as the commander of a self-propelled gun. All of his comrades are older than him and have a certain life experience. In addition, the crew has no discipline, equipment breaks down, and Meleshkin is threatened with dismissal. But the young officer is ready to go to any lengths to save his comrades.

In this film, there is no bombast and jingoism. The director managed to show a simple soldier's life, marches, moments of attack.

If we are looking for something to find fault with in the film, then it is worth saying that its creators made several blunders. So, in the scene of the attack in the frame, a T-54 or T-55 tank, but these models were produced in the USSR after the war.

4. "White Tiger"

Creation year: 2012

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

The film "White Tiger" became the first full-length military science fiction film by Karen Shakhnazarov. He dedicated this film to his father, who went to the front at 18, his comrades in arms and all the veterans who went through the crucible of the war.

Viewers are transported to 1943. At the front, they only say that a huge German tank, which appears unexpectedly, can destroy an entire Soviet battalion and is hiding in the smoke. This mystical tank is called the "White Tiger". But quite unexpectedly, a man appears among the wounded soldiers who does not remember his past, does not know his name, but understands the "language of tanks" and knows how to destroy the "White Tiger" - the embodiment of the war itself and all its horrors.

In 2012, the film "White Tiger" was nominated for the Oscar, and in 2013 he received the Golden Eagle.

5. "The crew of the combat vehicle"

Year of creation: 1983 Director: Vitaly Vasilevsky

This war drama was filmed based on the memoirs of Alexander Milyukov. The events of the film unfold in the summer of 1942. The tank commander, Sasha Menshov, returns to the front after the hospital, and before a serious battle, the command receives an order from the command: "Do not engage in battles, save your strength." But a German spy tank set fire to Menshov's combat vehicle, and he decided that he had to destroy the German ace. And this victory became a kind of prologue to the well-known defeat of the fascist hordes in the tank battle near Prokhorovka.

It is worth saying that the shooting of the "duel" battle of tanks is simply amazing. Neither before, nor even in modern computer cinema can you find such a thing. There are unique shots in the film that allow you to see how the shot from the movie "The Crew of a Combat Vehicle" really hits an anti-tank missile.

Many critics and viewers agreed that it was in this low-budget film of the Odessa Film Studio, which looked rustic even in the 1980s, that the Great Patriotic War was real. Without terry patriotism and far-fetched hoaxes.

6. "The guy from our city"

Year of creation: 1942 Director: Alexander Stolper, Boris Ivanov

Today, films made during the Great Patriotic War are already history. And also a certain moral criterion for modern people.

They began to shoot this film even before the war, and it was released on screens in 1942 with some amendments. When Nazi Germany attacked the USSR, the cinema mobilized all its forces to support its people in this difficult struggle. Critics believe that the authors of the film managed not only to preserve the romance and heroism of the play by Konstantin Simonov, but also to strengthen them to a certain extent. And no small merit in this is the performer of the leading role of actor Nikolai Kryuchkov. People believed in his hero Lukonin, they took an example from him. For all the spectators, he was a "guy from our city", and such a guy could live anywhere: in Saratov, in Leningrad, in Ryazan, in Moscow …

Interestingly, almost 40 years later, director Elena Mikhailova shot the film "I Believe in Love" - a story about how the fate of Vary and Sergei Lukonin, the main characters of the film "A Guy from Our City", could have developed.

6. "Corps of General Shubnikov"

Year of creation: 1942 Director: Alexander Stolper, Boris Ivanov

Events take place in the winter of 1942. By order of Hitler, four tank divisions were to be transferred to the aid of Paulus at Stalingrad from the Velikiye Luki region. General Shubnikov must perform a difficult task: to deliver a massive blow that would break through the enemy's defenses, creating the appearance of a major offensive, and so distract the Nazis from the Stalingrad cauldron.

Modern critics argue that this picture of the Mosfilm studio is worthy to take a closer look at its content. An interesting discovery awaits the meticulous viewer. The content of the film is so seditious that it is difficult to imagine how it was filmed and released on screens in the late 1980s - a time of unbearably strict censorship.

And if revelations like "women give birth to new" or "with one rifle for three" can simply be dismissed, referring to their unreliability, then the film "General Shubnikov's Corps" is a story about how they actually won the war.

READ ALSO: 10 popular Soviet films that should be shown to children today

BONUS: "Four tankmen and a dog"

Released: 1966 - 1970 Director: Konrad Nalecki, Andrzej Czekalski

This black-and-white military-adventure television series was filmed by Polish filmmakers based on the novel of the same name by Janusz Pshymanowski. It was first released on May 9, 1966. According to the plot, the Polish crew of the RUDY tank takes part in military operations to liberate the territory of Poland and European countries from the Nazi invaders. Getting into all kinds of stories, the crew always leaves them with honor.

The series was a huge success in Poland. Based on the series, lessons were held in schools, performances were staged in theaters, and so-called Tankers' Clubs were organized. This series gained immense popularity both in the USSR and in other countries of the Soviet bloc.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything changed. The Polish nationalists saw sedition in the film, and in 2006 there were protests against the show of the series. They came from the vice-chairman of the veteran organization "Porozumienia Organizacji Kombatanckich i Niepodległościowych" Jerzy Bukowski, and Bronislaw Wildstein, the chairman of Polish television, said at the time that films that denigrate the country's historical past would not be shown in Poland.

But a year later, Bronislaw Wildstein was dismissed from his post for behavior "contrary to journalistic ethics": he published 240 thousand names of people who could cooperate with the special services of Poland during the years of the communist regime. When Wildstein was fired, the show was resumed on Polish television.

And at the beginning of 2019, a film about the escaped tank was released. Many were interested in - fiction or real events formed the basis of the sensational film "T-34".