The first Soviet musical film? Old films, like older people, must be approached with love and understanding. With love, because the paintings “over 80” without any prefix “cinema” are already history. And with understanding, because it is always difficult for pioneers. Connoisseurs of the old cinema will immediately compare Savchenko’s film with the insanely popular musical comedy “Jolly Guys” by Grigory Alexandrov. And this comparison will not be in favor of Harmony. However, it should be remembered that “Harmony” was released a few months before the musical “Jolly Guys”, therefore, Alexandrov had enough time to “learn from the mistakes of others.” There were no mistakes at all.
For Igor Savchenko, this is the first film in his very short life (died at the age of 44). In 1926-1929 he studied at the Leningrad Institute of Performing Arts. Headed Baku Tram. In 1932 he played on stage and made productions in the Moscow Tram. Since 1931 he has been acting as a film director. “Harmony” is a musical comedy about the life of the Komsomol village, where Savchenko played the acute role of the kulak son of the Dreadful. The poetic image of nature is combined in the picture with the disclosure of people's feelings, with songs, poetic dialogue. The script is based on the poem “Harmony” by the Russian Soviet poet Alexander Alekseevich Zharov, whose poetry was widely known among the youth of the 1920-40s.
About his poem "Harmony", extremely popular in his time, Mikhail Svetlov at the end of his life wrote: "And let them hug like sisters - my "Grenada" and your "Harmony"." However, not all poets shared the enthusiasm for the work of Zharov. For example, Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: I am told that I often scold Zharov. I will cite one line from his poem: “From the burning fireplace of the revolution departed the great fireman.” But really, what kind of firebrands are there? There's no such thing. And if the fireman left the fireplace, then he had nothing to do there at all. What the poet wanted to do in a truly revolutionary way became essentially a meaningless, empty phrase. So, comrades, on the one hand, often writers write in such a way that either the mass is incomprehensible, or, if it is understandable, it turns out stupidity.
Be that as it may, the poet-songwriter, A. A. Zharov left a bright mark in the history of Soviet mass song of the 1930s - 1950s as the author of the works: “Song of former campaigns” (Muse. Z. L. Kompaneyets), “Treasured Stone” (Muse. B. A. Mokrousov), “Sad Willows” (Muse. I. Blanter), “We marched” (Muse. K. Y. Listov), “We are for peace” (Muse. S. Tulikov) and many others. Even earlier, in the 1920s, the song “Weigh with fires” written on the words of his early poem (music by S. F. Kaidan-Dyoshkin) was very popular. Now it becomes clear the popularity of the poem “Harmony” – Zharov in simple poetic language, without deep metaphors, spoke about the life of the Komsomol members.
Of course, now the picture “Harmony” is perceived quite differently than in the year of release. There is nothing strange in this, because the film was shot exclusively for its time, and the director could hardly dream that the work will outlive it almost 2 times. Today, it is not so much the plot itself that looks interesting, but the people and life of that time – this is a real cinema, taking the viewer many decades into the depths of our history. As for chaptushki and songs, they do not need "relevance", because they are sung as easily as young people who sincerely believe in the bright future of the country of the Soviets breathe.