FRIDAY FILM AND FISH & CHIP SHOW !

'ALEKSANDR NEVSKI' (1938) 'ALEKSANDR NEVSKI' (1938) watched Friday 2nd May 2014

This Friday's 16mm film print is on Fuji thick base stock edge code " 70" made 1970. It is an original with fine contrast, sharp detail, and theatrical density. The optical soundtrack is excellent quality for a film of 1938 with an orchestral soundtrack.

This is a film that I know from listening and appreciating the music score of Sergie Prokofiev and it was not until I acquired this film print that I first watched the film. Many prints of classic black and white films shown at film society screenings had indistinct subtitles, and the laboratory process of adding an extra roll of titles superimposed over the picture negative could make the printed image less sharp. However the English subtitles on this print are legible.

The extraordinary sound score of Prokofiev recorded on the soundtrack is unlike the familiar recordings. The flatulant horn motif representing the Teutonic invaders evokes an unnerving menace which adds to the impact of the visual storyboard imagery of Sergie Eisenstein. At times scenes become a caricature, almost comic, as the crushing of the Teuton helmets. Eisenstein had visited the United States with Grigori Aleksandrov and Ivor Montagu with a view to making a film in Hollywood of which scenarios 'Sutter's Gold' and 'An American Tragedy' were written.

'ALEKSANDR NEVSKI' (1938)

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