Ballad of a Soldier (1959) on Netflix
Private Alyosha Skvortsov, nineteen, knocks out two German tanks on the Eastern Front. Offered a medal, he asks for leave to fix his mother's leaking roof.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb8.2/1012,453 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Nineteen-year-old Private Alyosha Skvortsov earns six days' leave by knocking out two German tanks on the Eastern Front. He turns down a decoration and asks to go home instead, to repair his mother's leaking roof. On the way he sees the devastation the war has left on the country. He carries the bag of Vasya, a soldier sent home after losing a leg, and agrees to bring two bars of soap from Private Pavlov to Pavlov's wife, who lives in a city on his route. A can of beef eases the concern of Gavrilkin, the sentry who stops him from boarding an army supply train. In a freight car he meets Shura, a young woman who has sneaked aboard.
Cast
- Mariya Kremnevaas Elizaveta Petrovna (Pavlov's Wife)
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Although Ballad of a Soldier is set in 1942, its soldiers wear shoulder boards not introduced until 1943; Grigory Chukhray did this on purpose so European audiences would recognise the uniform of the Soviet soldier-liberator.
- The two lead roles went to Ivashov and Prokhorenko, both only nineteen with little acting experience; Grigory Chukhray called giving the main parts to inexperienced actors a big risk.
- Oleg Strizhenov and Liliya Aleshnikova were originally cast in the lead roles of Ballad of a Soldier, but the director, Chukhray, insisted they be replaced.
- Chukhray injured his leg on the first day of filming, during the scene of the departure from the front, and later, once shooting resumed, he caught typhoid fever.
- In the 2025 anime film Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc, the characters Denji and Makima watch a film that is a direct homage to Ballad of a Soldier.
- Part of the crew on Ballad of a Soldier quit the production over creative differences with the director's artistic vision.
- TCM host Robert Osborne said Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was a fan of Chukhray, so the director was given more leeway than normal on the film.
