Mikhail A. Kuznetsov Movies

In this fantasy, a kindly soldier finally gets to return home after spending many years at war. En route to his home he makes friends with many animals. He then meets up with a sad young boy whose mother has been stolen by the wicked czar of water because she is a talented weaver. He holds her captive in his underwater kingdom. Fortunately, the soldier and the child are helped on their quest by the czar's good hearted granddaughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Russian filmmaker Boris Barnet's Schedroe Leto was released variously in the U.S. as Beautiful Summer and Bountiful Summer. The film was Barnet's first color effort, and a beautiful job it was indeed. Essentially a musical comedy with lightly propagandistic underpinnings, the film offers a rosy-hued look at life in a "typical" Ukrainian collective farm. The largely female cast seemingly can't go for an hour at a time without bursting into song. Somehow, the film finds time for a plot concerning the friendly rivalry between Oksana (M. Bebutova) and Vera (N. Arkhipova), who try to outdo each other in raising livestock and harvesting grain. A romantic subplot involves Vera with mild-mannered bookkeeper Peter (M. Kuznetsov). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second part of Sergei Eisenstein's baroque chronicle of the legendary Russian czar was originally planned as a three-part epic. But Eisenstein had battles with Russian censors over the second part of his trilogy, ostensibly because of a negative depiction of Ivan's secret police force (Stalin feared that Eisenstein was making a veiled reference to himself). Although filmed shortly after Part One in 1946, the film was suppressed and was not released until 1958. In the meantime, Eisenstein, who died in 1948, never completed his project, spending most of his time defending himself before Stalin and his censor boards. Part Two takes up the story of Ivan the Terrible (Nikolai Cherkasov) upon his return to Moscow from Alexandrov. Ivan must deal with a group of unfriendly boyars and becomes even more insulated after his mother is poisoned and an assassination plot is uncovered. The black-and-white film ends with a luminous color banquet scene. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

After so many Russian war documentaries and propaganda films, it must have been refreshing for Soviet audiences to relax with the musical-comedy frivolities of Taxi to Heaven. The storyline is the standard "two guys in love with one girl" saw, the "guys" in this case being opera singer Svetlovidov (Georgi Spiegel) and civilian transport pilot Baranov (Mikhail Zharov). Both are vying for the affections of pretty Natasha (Ludmilla Tselikovakaya), who evinces a preference for the opera star. But when Baranov performs an act of conspicious courage on behalf of his country, Natasha changes her mind. A bit ragged production-wise, Taxi to Heaven scores on its exuberance and lively musical content. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Prolific Soviet filmmaker Yuli Raizman reached the pinnacle of his success with such wartime flag-wavers as Mashenka. Set before and during the Russo-Finnish war of 1939-40, the film concentrates on the romance between post-office employee Mashenka (Valentina Karavayeva) and taxi driver Alyosha (Mikhail Kutznetzov). Encouraging the young man to become an engineer, Mashenka nearly loses him when he achieves success in his new profession and falls prey to the temptations of the seductive Vera (B. Altaskaya). When war breaks out between Russia and Finland, Mashenka signs up for nursing duty, and while on the battlefield she is joyously reunited with the errant Alyosha, now a member of the infantry. The final scene, a graphic and violent assault on a Finnish village, impressed even those reviewers who weren't politely inclined towards the Soviets in 1942. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi