ABSTRACT
During the period described, the fate of the 'song' film, which had been a stunning success in the pre-war decade, was far from easy. By 1944 it had practically disappeared from the cinema, and returned to the screen only when the victory of the countries of the anti-Hitlerite coalition over fascist Germany was already sure. But the song as such had never ceased sounding in Soviet film, though its tone was now somewhat different. It was no longer the steady, energetic march that had prevailed in the genre of the thirties: the cinema of the war years, the forties, turned to a gentle lyrical song, imbued with a feeling of homesickness, and expressing devotion to one's beloved. It was just what distinguished one of the most popular, evergreen songs by Bogoslovsky, 'Dark is the night', which was first sung in Lukov's film Two Soldiers (1943). But if in earlier films the song, as a rule, characterized a particular person or conveyed a certain conceptual idea or a slogan, now it served a different purpose: film makers used an alienation device, which helped them reveal the personal side of army life, indiscernible in the roar of warfare.
