Mother Russia & Uncle Sam

Forty-Nine Days is a Russian movie that is warmly and explicitly pro-American--and just possibly critical of Communism too.

The picture is based on an incident that occurred in 1960 off the Pacific coast of Siberia. A storm in its fury rips a landing craft loose from its anchorage and drives it out to sea. Four Russian soldiers are aboard, a noncom and three enlisted men. They have fuel for a couple of hours, food for a couple of days.

They ration the food to last a couple of weeks. When it's gone they try to fish, but fish do not follow the current they are caught in. On the 30th day they begin to eat their boots, polish and all. When the boots are gone, they subsist on water. When the water is gone they lie in their bunks and wait for death.

On the 49th day they hear a roaring in their ears. They pay it no mind--dying men quite often hear such strange noises. But this time the roaring gets louder, louder, louder. They stagger out on deck and--Up to this point, Forty-Nine Days is both solid entertainment and sound Marx. Survival, Director Genrikh Gabai declares, is a social act: to exist is to coexist. At this point, however, something remarkably un-Marxian happens. The survivors lift up their eyes, and there in the middle air, shimmering like angels, hover three huge U.S. Navy helicopters. One by one, miraculously, they let down long silvery loops and lift the weary voyagers up, up, up into the sky. The spectator stares in amazement. Does Director Gabai intend some sort of allegory here? Does he really mean to say that the Russian people are enduring a terrible ordeal, and that only America can save them from disaster? He would doubtless hoot at the idea, and yet--In any case, he obviously means to speak warmly of the U.S., and the Kremlin obviously approves. In the final scenes the Russian soldiers are surrounded by smiling American seamen who practically kill them with kindness. Misty-eyed, the Russian noncom declares: "They're good boys." And an American officer cheerfully observes that "the atmosphere on our planet seems to be getting a little warmer." Could be. Could also be more of the same old Commyrot.

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