The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming
Blu-ray
Kino Lorber
1966 / 2:35.1 / 126 Min.
Starring Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint
Written by William Rose
Photographed by Joseph Biroc
Directed by Norman Jewison
Cape Cod can’t catch a break, before there were sharks, there were Russians. Though the Russians were considerably friendlier than the sharks. In his star-making film role, the affable Alan Arkin plays the affable Lieutenant Yuri Rozanov, a Soviet navy man with a problem on his hands—his superior officer was a little too curious about how the American half lives and their sub has run aground off the coast of (the fictional) Gloucester Island, Pop. 200. Their only option is to find a friendly face among the villagers and borrow a boat that will set their shipwrecked sub free.
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming is basically an invasion movie with no invaders—as if Disney decided to produce a hard-hitting expose of American paranoia in the style of a family-friendly comedy. The sailors are a bunch of jack-booted teddy bears who are as threatening as Charlie Chaplin, as accident prone as Laurel and Hardy, and as adorable as E.T.—like the little extraterrestrial, the Russians just want to go home.
Of course the New Englanders, an extremely white bunch, live on an island for a reason; cranky and inherently suspicious, the townsfolk are already hostile to foreigners, let alone Nikita’s own bully-boys. Carl Reiner plays Walt Whittaker, Rozanov’s American doppelgänger, the voice of reason in a crowd prone to panic. He sympathizes with Rozanov’s dilemma but who needs reason when hysteria is an option? Imagine Fox News reporting this story.
Norman Jewison based his 1966 film on Nathaniel Benchley’s 1961 satire The Off-Islanders and it’s one of the prime examples of a uniquely 60’s phenomena (some would call it a epidemic), the “epic” comedy. These films had the running length of a David Lean film and juggled all-star comedian casts, wall-to-wall vaudevillians fighting tooth and nail for screen time. The genre was exemplified by movies like Ken Annakin’s Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Blake Edwards’ The Great Race, and the multi-Bond disaster, Casino Royale. The touchstone for these cinematic money pits was Stanley Kramer’s, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World, though The Russians Are Coming has the benefit of actually being funny.
Jewison’s movie became what it is, not because of the director’s need to out-do the competition but because of an expansive script by William Rose which called for a large and expensive cast, and a shooting schedule that went haywire; Fort Bragg, the California locale meant to stand in for the inclement eastern coast, was rainy and foggy itself, extending the production time for months and ballooning the budget. Any plans for a modest comedy in the vein of Ealing’s Tight Little Island or Passport to Pimlico were run aground as surely as those Russian navy men.
The film is a mix of heavy-handed New England caricatures, thick-fingered Mad World slapstick, and a truly awful romantic subplot, yet the director and his veteran cast keep their eye on the ball. Jewison’s work is remarkably assured and at times even suspenseful (Spielberg may have studied his compositions when making Jaws and 1941)—the comedy may be ham-handed but Jewison is a superb juggler. Joseph Biroc’s streamlined cinematography keeps the film from looking like a widescreen sit-com and Hal Ashby’s editing keeps the action taut even when the comedy is sagging.
Carl Reiner, who at the time was starring in one of TV’s great sit-coms, had comedic instincts that were rooted in the real world but could slip into cartoonish slapstick at a moment’s notice. And there were artists who represented the new “sick” humor of the ’60s like Jonathan Winters who is relatively subdued but still satisfyingly offbeat. Theodore Bikel, one of the original Tevye’s in Fiddler on the Roof, is a cheerful yet intimidating autocrat as the sub commander while typically no-nonsense actors like Eva Marie Saint and Brian Keith are credible bulwarks to the general insanity.
When Alan Arkin came to Hollywood he brought the Second City with him and that improvisational spark energizes all his scenes in Russians—he’s the closest thing to an actual human being in the movie. Rosanov appears to be a man who’s learned to suffer fools yet managed to retain his dignity—those fools include the jokers on his own crew and especially the gun-totin’ bumpkins of Gloucester. When World War 3 is at his doorstep, Rosanov is at his most convivial, never was a pained expression so expressive. And a special mention to Danny Klega, Ray Baxter, Paul Verdier, and the other members of Rosanov’s crew—most of their work is pantomime and they exhibit skills equal to the great silent movie comedians.
Biroc, master of eye-popping color (Viva Las Vegas) and lustrous black and white (Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte) is well represented by the new Blu ray from Kino Lorber, you can practically smell the sea air.
Weighing in with a new feature-length commentary are film historians Michael Schlesinger and Mark Evanier. Among their many accomplishments, Schlesinger wrote and directed The Adventures of Biffle and Shooster, a tribute to classic slapstick teams, and Evanier is a longtime comedy writer for both television and comics. These guys know whereof they speak.
Also included is a promotional featurette with Norman Jewison, The Russians Are Coming to Hollywood. Wrapping up the package is the film’s theatrical trailer, an improvised bit of fun with Arkin and Reiner. Sadly the package doesn’t come with a life-size reproduction of Jack Davis’s epic poster art but you can’t have everything.
Here’s John Landis on The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming:
MAD MAD WORLD is not “actually funny?” It’s pistols at dawn for you, my fine-feathered friend! Harrumph, harrumph.
Ha! Made my day! Note that I have the luxury of staying neutral on this issue! Hee hee.
“Emergency emergency, everyone to be getting from street!” – Laughed very hard indeed!
I still quote that line
Funny making a Jaws reference inasmuch as Nathaniel’s son Peter wrote the book (and his dad Robert wasn’t bad with the typewriter either).
And since Mr. Largent mentioned Fiddler on the Roof, it’s perhaps worth adding that the play Enter Laughing is based on the novel of the same title by Joseph Stein, author of the book for Fiddler on the Roof, and the screenplay for the film, directed by Norman Jewison. So there are multiple connections here.
[…] intriguing Ann Atmar took her own life less than a year later. The Incubus himself, Milos Milos ( The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming) died in a notorious murder-suicide, also in 1966, with Mickey Rooney’s fifth […]