Vonia The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) Director: Norman Jewison Watched: May 24, 2018 Rating: 7/10 Ah, the things we could learn from The Telephone Game, Amusingly confusing with half the film in poor English and (in the original version) deliberately unsubtitled Russian. An entertaining and heartwarming watch- though largely implausible, overdone, overlong, and predictable, A cheesy but completely unlikely ending that teaches love and harmony, because "I do not mistrust... not really sinceriously. I wish not to hate anybody!" Anyone who gripes that this Cold War satire is outdated should try replacing "Russians" with "Terrorists". ---- Gogyohka literally translates to "five-line poem." An alternative to the tanka form, the gogyohka has very simple rules. Five lines with one phrase per line. What comprises a phrase? Eye of the beholder- or the poet, in this case. #Gogyohka #PoemReview #GoldenGlobesBestPicture #War

MartinHafer Perhaps this movie played a lot better back in 1966 or perhaps it was a really, really poor year for films or perhaps the Oscar folks were just nuts. All I know is that when I saw "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming", it was hard to imagine that it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar! The picture begins with an accident in which a Soviet submarine gets stuck. It seems the Captain (Theodore Bikel) wanted to get a look at America and the ship just got too close. So, an officer (Alan Arkin) takes a few men ashore--looking to steal a boat so they can tow the sub away from the sandbar. Obviously, they should have just asked for help and by sneaking ashore, townsfolk soon think they are being invaded. Ultimately, this results in a huge confrontation where the Captain threatens to blow up the town and the Sheriff (Brian Keith) threatens to shoot back! This confrontation is broken up by an accident involving young Johnny Whitaker--and everyone is instantly buddies and the world is saved.All in all, the film suffers from three problems. First, as a comedy, it just isn't funny. Second, at times the film shows poor writing. The romance happens way too fast and way too easily and the ending involving Whitaker is embarrassingly done, as it's so contrived and obvious. And, what happens next strains credibility WAY beyond the breaking point. Third, the film tries hard to make a statement about peace and the Cold War--and I think it should have focused more on this than attempts at humor (attempts, mind you, only ATTEMPTS). All in all, a great idea for a film and some nice performances--but it's all for naught. A decent time passer but NOT another "Dr. Strangelove"--another picture that was nominated for Best Picture but actually deserved this (and so much more).By the way, although some of the principles in the film (Keith, Arkin, Paul Ford and Carl Reiner) all have good parts and make quite a bit of it, some other folks are totally wasted. In particular, Jonathan Winters is in the film but has absolutely NOTHING to do and is wasted. How could they do this with such a naturally funny man?!

TedMichaelMor What happened to make sixties comedies unpleasant? "The Russians Are Coming" presumably satirizes Cold War hysteria, but this mess does not work. This is not "Doctor Strangelove" and it is most certainly not "The Charge of the Light Brigand". Unlike the makers of those masterwork films,Norman Jewison never attains a plausible sense of the pervading hysteria of the sixties. I do not know why because he directed many excellent films. One would never know that from this movie.Eva Marie Saint is as enchantingly beautiful as she is in other films, but she is wasted here. What made anyone think that Carl Reiner and Jonathan Winters yelling was funny? Both men were said to be comedic geniuses, but here they are not comical. The dialogue is mind numbing and repetitive.An annoying aspect of the movie is that the largely California locations look nothing like New England, though Nantucket was one location used.This film is just not funny; that it might once have seemed amusing is a sad commentary on our taste during the sixties.

eplromeo8 Russia and Communism seems to be of particular interest to the Reel 13 programmers what with this film, ONE, TWO, THREE last week and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF next week. Perhaps they'll want to replace BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK on April 19th with DOCTOR ZHIVAGO or WAR AND PEACE – just to keep the streak going.Not that I'm complaining really. This film, in particular, which I was seeing for the first time, was quite good and much more effective at political satire than ONE, TWO, THREE. It is frequently funny, led by the Oscar-nominated performance by Alan Arkin as a Russian sailor stranded with eight comrades on an island in the Cape Cod area. As a matter of fact, it's almost disturbingly funny, given that the hysteria of the townspeople in the film feels all too real and possible (though heightened here for comic effect). Even if the Russian-as-bad-guy theme is old news, it can easily be substituted with some sort of terrorist threat, which makes the film just as relevant today as it was in 1966.The film isn't without its hiccups, however. It's a little slow-paced for a comedy, though I realize it's a very different kind of comedy. There are a good number of clunky scenes to balance out the ones that hit all the right notes. The love story, for example, between the young, blonde Russian and the blonde babysitter is EXTREMELY lame and should have either been paid attention to more (the babysitter has something like four lines total) or abandoned completely. Additionally, I think Carl Reiner was miscast. He may be a comic genius, but more as a writer and sometimes a straight man on the variety show circuit. He never has been that strong of an actor and that is proved once again with his uninspired performance in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING.Still and all, the film was really strong and you have to really give a lot of credit to director Norman Jewison, who, in spite of a very impressive track record, isn't much talked about among the elite film-making talents of the last forty years. Given that April is, to some degree, Norman Jewison month on Reel 13 (He also directed next week's FIDDLER), I got to thinking about his canon. I've decided that what's most impressive about his body of work is how eclectic it is in terms of style (he is very good at altering his style to fit the story he's crafting) and genre (he can do comedy, satire, drama, fairy tale and musicals). There is a connection in his work in terms of theme – he seems to be particularly interested in social injustice, whether it be racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism or what have you. Another consistency I noticed in the Norman Jewison oeuvre is a series of outstanding performances, too numerous to list here. So what we have here is a filmmaker that adapts his style to the story instead of vice versa with a particular focus on performance and character development. He may not be as celebrated as Hitchcock, Ford, Scorsese or Spielberg, but it seems to me if we had a few more young filmmakers emulating Jewison instead of Tarantino, we'd be a lot better off.(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)