Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 10/15/2002
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 126 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: MGM
Just because
The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming was vastly overrated by contemporary critics does not make it any less amusing. The story gets under way when a Soviet submarine accidently gets lodged in a sandbar on the coast of a New England town. In his feature film debut,
Alan Arkin plays the sub's second-in-command, who is ordered by commander
Theodore Bikel to free up the sub and skeedaddle before an international incident erupts. Hoping to secure a power boat to tug the sub out to sea,
Arkin and his men call upon vacationing TV writer
Carl Reiner, passing themselves off as Norwegians. When this ruse fails,
Arkin is reluctantly compelled to force
Reiner at gunpoint to fetch his motorboat, while gentle-natured Russian sailor
John Philip Law is left behind to guard
Reiner's wife
Eva Marie Saint and pretty neighbor girl
Andrea Dromm (yes, love blooms). The plot thickens when the locals, notably bullnecked sheriff
Brian Keith and superpatriot
Paul Ford, spread the word that the Russians have "invaded" their little community. Several slapstick complications later, the Russians and the locals face each other down in the center of the village, weapons at the ready. Fortunately, World War 3 is averted when the Russians and the villagers band together to rescue young
Johnny Whittaker from falling to his doom. Enormously popular upon its first release,
The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming still works on a slick sitcom level. The film was based on a novel by
Nathaniel Benchley, the son of humorist
Robert Benchley and the father of
Jaws author
Peter Benchley.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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