The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming |
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theatrical film poster by Jack Davis
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Directed by | Norman Jewison |
Produced by | Norman Jewison |
Screenplay by | William Rose |
Based on |
The Off-Islanders (1961 novel) by Nathaniel Benchley |
Starring |
Carl Reiner Eva Marie Saint Alan Arkin Brian Keith Jonathan Winters Theodore Bikel Paul Ford |
Music by |
Johnny Mandel Bonia Shur |
Cinematography | Joseph F. Biroc |
Edited by |
Hal Ashby J. Terry Williams |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date
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Running time
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126 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $3.9 million |
Box office | $21,693,114 |
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming | ||||
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Soundtrack album by Johnny Mandel | ||||
Released | 1966 | |||
Recorded | 1966 | |||
Genre | Film score | |||
Label |
United Artists UAL-4142 |
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Johnny Mandel chronology | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic |
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming is a 1966 DeLuxe Color American comedy film directed by Norman Jewison in Panavision. It is based on the Nathaniel Benchley novel The Off-Islanders, and was adapted for the screen by William Rose.
The film depicts the chaos following the grounding of the Soviet submarine Спрут (pronounced "sproot" and meaning "octopus") off a small New England island during the Cold War. The film stars Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Alan Arkin in his first major film role, Brian Keith, Theodore Bikel, Jonathan Winters, and Paul Ford.
A Russian submarine called Спрут ("Octopus") draws too close to the New England coast one morning when its captain (Theodore Bikel) wants to take a good look at America and runs aground on a sandbar near the fictional Gloucester Island, which, from other references in the movie, is located off the coast of Cape Ann or Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and has a significant population of summer visitors. Rather than radio for help and risk an embarrassing international incident, the captain sends a nine-man landing party, headed by his zampolit (Political Officer) Lieutenant Yuri Rozanov (Alan Arkin), to find a motor launch to help free the submarine from the bar. The men arrive at the house of Walt Whittaker (Carl Reiner), a vacationing playwright from New York City. Whittaker is eager to get his wife Elspeth (Eva Marie Saint) and two children, obnoxious but precocious nine and half-year-old Pete (Sheldon Collins) and three-year-old Annie (Cindy Putnam), off the island now that summer is over.