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Dreadfully Boring

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

A group of Soviet guerrillas operate out of a hideout behind enemy lines. Vladimir (Gregory Peck) is the heroic commander. He falls for the civilian dancer Nina Ivanova. A German soldier stumbles upon the hidden camp and is taken prisoner. Nina is horrified with Vladimir's willingness to kill a POW. When the soldier tries to escape, Nina is the one who kills him. Harden partisan Yelena is also in love with Vladimir but she is shot on a mission.This is old fashion melodrama set in backdrop of the war. The Russians are still allies and there is a fair amount of propaganda work involved in this. The most notable is the theatrical debut of Peck. He's among several stage actors involved in this production. He's young, gaunt, and rather commanding. He enters the movie after the first fifteen minutes. Obviously, somebody would have made him the overwhelming star of the film if they knew his legendary career to come. As it is, he is the lead in an ensemble cast.

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.

I saw this film when it was first released, many decades ago; so my memories are faded. But I do remember that the performances of Peck and Toumanova were electrifying.The quality of the production was, I thought, excellent. As I was a teen-ager, the intimate scenes between Peck and Toumanova had less to say to me than they might have done. Yet now, sixty-odd years later, I still remember them as emotionally meaningful.I remember thinking that wearing dark clothes while trying to manoeuvre in the snow was stupid, and not true-to-life. But the overall impression was of heroic resistance against overwhelming odds.It was inspiring and uplifting. I glowed for days.

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. 7/10