Angelina Stepanova

Five years after his intriguing debut, Proverka No Dorogakh, director Alexei German returned with this fascinating examination of differing attitudes toward war. The story concerns Maj. Lopatin (Yuri Nikulin), a writer who goes home to Tashkent to spend a 20-day leave following the Battle of Stalingrad. There, he works with a film crew making a movie based on his articles... (All Movie Guide)

In May 1919, the city of Petrograd, the Bolsheviks' stronghold in Russia, is attacked by the counter-revolutionary White Army of General Nikolai Yudenich, who is supported by the imperialist British, and especially by the warmongering Winston Churchill. The city's High Soviet is demoralized and about to order an evacuation, while the White fifth column inside it plots an insurrection... (GusF)