World War II-dated DS, nine pages, 8.5 x 11, October 21, 1942. Contract between Lewis Milestone and Samuel Goldwyn, Inc., the latter of which employs and engages Milestone “to render your exclusive services for us as a director in connection with a photoplay now tentatively entitled ‘THE RUSSIAN STORY,’ to be based upon the story of the screenplay of said photoplay which is now being prepared for us by Lillian Hellman.” Signed at the conclusion in fountain pen by Milestone. In fine condition.
The film in question was later released in 1943 under the title The North Star (also known as Armored Attack in the U.S.) and starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, and Erich von Stroheim. The film is about the resistance of Ukrainian villagers, through guerrilla tactics, against the German invaders of the Ukrainian SSR. Unashamedly pro-Soviet propaganda at the height of the war, the film was later criticized in the 1950s and was re-cut to remove the idealized portrayal of Soviet collective farms at the beginning and to include references to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.
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