Ballad of a Soldier

Баллада о солдате (1959)

Timing: 1:29 (89 min)

7.9/10
214

8.329/10
74360

8.2/10
12000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 8

Actors and characters

Release date

1959-12-01

Country

Production

Mosfilm

Genre

Drama, Romance, War

Budget

$5 000 000

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Grigoriy Chukhray

Actors

Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolay Kryuchkov, Evgeniy Urbanskiy, Elza Lezhdey, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Yevgeni Teterin, Valentina Markova, Mariya Kremneva
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Grigoriy Chukhray, Valentin Ezhov

Producer

Pavel Danilyants

Operator

Era Savelyeva

Composer

Artist

Audition

Editing

Mariya Timofeyeva
All team (11)

• According to Grigory Chukhrai, the title "Ballad of a Soldier" was suggested by Mikhail Romm after reading one of the script drafts.
• Work on the film's script took place at Valentin Yezhov’s dacha. At the same time, Grigory Pozhenyan was also creating the script for the film "Thirst" (1959) there.
• Vladimir Ivashov named his firstborn Alexei in honor of the main character of "Ballad of a Soldier".
• The film is set in 1942, but the soldiers on screen are wearing uniforms from 1943—with shoulder boards instead of collar tabs. Frontline soldier Chukhrai was, of course, aware of this discrepancy, but deliberately went ahead with it to include this obvious anachronism in the film. The director hoped that the film would be watched by foreign audiences who saw Soviet liberating soldiers in the new uniform and sought to make the protagonist’s appearance more recognizable to them.
• For the role in the film "Ballad of a Soldier," Zhanna Prokhorenko was forced to leave her studies at the Moscow Art Theatre School. At Chukhrai’s personal request, the young actress was admitted to VGIK after successfully passing her exams.
• On the first day of filming (the scene of departure from the front), Grigory Chukhrai injured his leg, and when filming resumed, he fell ill with typhoid fever.
• Part of the film crew left due to disagreements with the director's vision.
• Famous Hollywood actress Liza Minnelli admitted in one interview that she watched this film five times in a row.
• Initially, Oleg Strizhenov was supposed to play Alyosha Skvortsov, and Liliya Aleshnikova was to play Shura. Instead, Chukhrai cast two debutantes – Vladimir Ivashov, a second-year student at VGIK, and Zhanna Prokhorenko, a student at the Moscow Art Theatre School.
• The first version of the script largely focused on describing the heroic labor of those working in the rear, and Shura was supposed to die in the city during a bombing.