The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
Director: Norman Jewison
Year Released: 1966
Rating: 1.5
Cold War revision of 'Chicken Licken', as Russian sailors (in a Russian sub) get lost and wind up trapped on an American shore, triggering panic in the yokels who think there is an invasion. Alan Arkin plays one of the Russians, and his apparent fluency in the language made me do a search to see if he really is multilingual - nothing came up. Plays out like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World (or other screwball comedies) until the last twenty minutes, at which point it turns into pretentious social commentary. It just goes to show: when the battle is just about to get ugly, a child in need can bring together people of all cultures, because, you know, language is the only barrier between us, and that our paranoia is a hindrance to all nations joining together for everlasting peace.
