North Star DVD

Five idealistic Soviet youths on a summer hike to Kiev suddenly lose their innocence as their tranquil Ukrainian farming village is attacked and occupied in the first days of the Nazi-German invasion of the Soviet Union. A Nazi medical unit is put in charge of the village and begins using the town’s children to supply a blood plasma bank for wounded German soldiers. The villagers resist the invaders immediately by forming guerilla units while the five youths fight desperately to supply them with weapons. Prior to and during US involvement in WWII, Hollywood’s propaganda mill tried to portray its Soviet ally in the best possible light. Predictably, there is no evidence of the atrocities of the Stalin regime in this film. Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennen Directed by Lewis Milestone

USA, 1943,108 min.

NTSC Region 0 encoding (Entire World)