Sorok pervyy = The Forty first

Set during the civil war in Turkestan, ‘The Forty First’ is a remake of the story of romance with a Red woman commander and her captive White officer. In a remote region of Russia, skirmishes are fought between two armies in conflict. The conditions are trying - in the sand dunes of eastern Russia there are few resources for the embattled soldiers. A courageous sharpshooter, the commander is escorting her prisoner to his new confines when the two are marooned. Inevitably romance erupts between the enemies who are drawn into a struggle involving personal feelings and class identification. Remembering her duty, the commander makes a tragic decision, killing her lover in order to save him from capture, when the pair are rescued by Czarists. A typically patriotic Soviet drama from the 1950s that delves into an interesting wartime moral dilemma.

Credits: Director, Grigorii Chukhrai ; writer, Grigorii Koltunov ; photography, Sergei Urusevskii ; music, Nikolai Kriukov.
Cast: Izolda Izvitskaya, Oleg Strizhenov, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Nikolai Dupak, Georgiy Shapovalov.