The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

So happy with this DVD - great copy of an hilarious movie. One of our very favorites. Really enjoyed the bonus features, too. Perfect purchase!!!

Funny, lighthearted movie. Yes, I would recommend it.

This is probably my favorite movie of all time. It was filmed during a low point in international politics, the so-called "cold war" period. Since I was a young person during this era and remember the fear it engendered, seeing the film put life into perspective and was a positive, enlightening, and healthy experience.As an adult, I can appreciate the panic of the "invaded" villagers; I could almost have seen a similar behavior arising in the small Midwestern town I lived in as a child had something like it occurred. The rapidity with which information was transmitted and distorted throughout the community by word of mouth was familiar to me. In fact it reminds me of the time an upset busybody called my mother to report that my brother had "spun the wheels" of the family car at a stop sign outside her house. My mother, who had just arrived home merely said, "Oh no, that was me!" On another occasion I ended up in a ditch during stormy weather, and my parents were almost instantly aware of it via the back fence hot-line and rescue was on the way before I even had a chance to chill. (There's a good side and a bad side to the hot line of small towns.)The Romeo and Juliet of the film are more sensible than in Shakespeare's play. With Juliet's Capulet and Romeo's Montegue at a stand off, they fall in love but agree to wait for better times. That makes them far more sensible and adult than their respective "families!" Someone should make another movie showing what happened after the collapse of the USSR; did they actually get together? After some 25 years of waiting, was the attraction still there?My favorite scene is that of the telephone operator and the playwrite (Carl Reiner), "Wittaker Walt" as the Russian squad leader (Alan Arkin) calls him, tied together with phone cord, attempting to escape the office to warn people of the potential for disaster. The gentle poke at conventions respected even in a time of apparent disaster was funny, as was the horror of the two at each anticipated minor catastrophy, already well recognized by the audience.One of the best features of the DVD version is the interview with the director Norman Jewison, who discusses the political climate of the period and the effect of the film on both sides of the contretemps. That the Russians actually saw the film and were impressed by it was something I had not even suspected when I first got the VHS version years ago.As the story points out, the Russians and the Americans were just people, and people with the same desires: personal safety and a chance to have and raise their families. They may be caught up in the mutual insanity of world politics, but at heart they are all world villagers whose concern for the life of a small child, one who might well be their own, is still uppermost. The director and author managed to portray the ignorance and fear that arise from a lack of contact and the manipulation of the political elite in both countries to keep that fear enflamed. Agendas abound, and they are often those that benefit those in control more than they do the individual people of either country. This allows countries as entities to do without question things we might never do as individuals. We might do well to take note; it's still going on.

I first saw this movie in 1970, and at the time I found it mildly amusing. From then until now, a lot has happened in my life. Most notably for the purpose of this interview, for the last nine years I have been living and working in the former Soviet Union. My office manager is a young Ukrainian woman, and when I told her about this movie she asked me to get it for her. She has shared it with other Russian and Ukrainian people we work with, meaning that in a vicarious way I have been able to watch it through their eyes. Their reaction has convinced me that this is an under-rated masterpiece.The movie, of course, is a comedy about a misunderstanding. The captain (Theodor Bikel) of a Soviet submarine (`Sprut', which means octopus in Russian) wants to see the United States through his periscope, comes too close to the shore, and runs aground in `Glocester' Island, which is supposed to be like Martha's Vineyard. Two of the crew, Lieutenant Rozanov (Alan Arkin) and Andrei Kolchin (John Phillips Law) can speak English, so they are dispatched with seven others to find a boat to pull the submarine off the reef. All they want is someone to help them get their submarine off the reef. But in a comic parody of cold war paranoia, the islanders believe they are the first victim of a Soviet attack against the United States. Each side fears the other, each misinterprets the other's intentions, and from that premise the comedy develops.When I saw the movie the first time, I enjoyed the acting of Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, and Paul Ford, all great American actors. I did not appreciate the other side. Now I know better. I work with many senior officers who are like the Soviet captain, many junior officers who are just trying to do the best they can with what they have like Lieutenant Rozanov, and many simple, good hearted soldiers like Kolchin. Considering how little contact there was between Soviet and American people at that time, I am deeply impressed by how well the national characteristics of the two sides (exaggerated, of course, for comic effect) are portrayed.None of the `Soviet' characters in this movie was a native Russian speaker, but none of my Russian or Ukrainian friends has found any flaw in the way they render their Russian-language lines. All my friends found the `Emergency! Everybody to get from street!' scene hilarious, because they have to struggle to learn proper English and they make the same mistakes made by those hapless sailors.I don't want to spoil the ending for readers who have never seen the movie, but after a seemingly hopeless confrontation between the islanders, armed to the teeth, and the submarine, the plot is resolved in a very simple yet beautiful way. The resolution of the standoff results from a trait that Russians and Americans share - they both love and indulge their children. I have read that when this movie was screened in Moscow, the Soviet film director Sergei Bondarchuk was in tears upon seeing how sweetly this movie ends. So were my friends over here.Ronald Reagan believed that if an ordinary Russian couple were to meet an ordinary American couple, with the language barriers removed, they would discuss their children, their homes, and would make plans for dinner. This movie makes the same point. Russians and Americans are two peoples divided by the fact that they know so little about each other. Movies like this show that they are more alike than they realize.

Given as a gift

il venditore e' molto affidabile. Disco arrivato nei tempi. Film molto spettacolare e pieno di brio, girato ancor prima del Dott. Stranamore di S. Kubrick, fu il primo a trattare in maniera comica le tematiche associate alla guerra fredda. grande Alan Arkin!

This hilarious comedy was once banned in the Soviet Union as "anti-Soviet propaganda" because it made the Russians look silly. In truth, everyone looked silly, especially many of the New England residents. Fundamentally, we are all the same, but against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the consequences of bad leadership should be more apparent than ever. Dictators and wannabe dictators bring all of us to ruin. Sadly, many American don't get it, but this film is still great entertainment!

I laughed when I first saw this movie in the '60s and I laughed even more when I viewed it again 50+ years later. It remains one of my all time favorite movies. Classic comedy with a cast of the best comedians of the time. This movie will NEVER grow old.

It's a remarkable movie by all standards. Firstly it's dated from the raging years of Cold War I (now we're amidst Cold War II, I'm affraid) and it shows the Soviets/Russians under a different light. Secondly, because it shows quite clearly that the major "enemy" during Cold War(s) it's not "the others"/"другие" but, instead, fear/страх.Another great quality of the movie is the choice of both actors and characters: it's not just a movie about the bright and the beautiful but also a movie about the old, the not-so-bright, the shy, the scary, the heavy smokers (Chief Maddox) the out-of-shape, the deaf, the drunk, the gullible, well,.... everyday people, like you and me.Finally, the music and the combination of both the USA and USSR flags in the animated sequences in the beggining and at the end are cool.It's a great movie, and, unfortunatelly, it's also an up to date movie..... Let's hope for the best!