Night on the 14th Parallel
[Ночь на 14-ой параллели]
USSR.Lenfil'm.1971.B/W.91 min.
Directors: Iulian Semenov and Vladimir Shredel'
Script: Iulian Semenov, Vladimir Shredel'
Cinematography: Vladimir Burykin
Music: Murad Kazhlaev
With Valentin Gaft, Vsevolod Platov, Elena Kozel'kova, Zhanna Kovenchuk
Russian dialogue. No subtitles.
Based on Semenov's novella "He Killed Me Near Luan Pra Bang."
A Soviet journalist in Vietnam is traveling back to the interior from the front to file his latest story. The truck he is riding in breaks down, and as he and his local companions try to fix it, an American helicopter attacks them. Unbeknownst to the journalist, the copter is piloted by an old friend, a left-leaning American journalist who, disillusioned by US publishers' refusal to print his work, has agreed to come to Vietnam and file the kind of stories that will get printed. His professional disillusionment, as well as his mounting personal problems, set him on a homicidal – and suicidal – path.
The suspenseful narrative is somewhat crudely framed by documentary footage of civilians suffering in Vietnam and a repeated voiceover warning to America that it will never defeat the Vietnamese, who are fighting for "their home and freedom."
Iulian Semenov
Iulian Semenov was a well-known prose writer, playwright, and screenwriter. He was born in Moscow in 1931 and graduated from the Institute of Oriental Studies in 1953. His best-known work is Seventeen Moments of Spring, one of the Soviet Union's most popular television miniseries. He died in 1993. Night on the 14th Parallel is his only directing credit.
Filmography as Screenwriter
| 1961 | Weekdays and Weekends |
| 1963 | Carrying Out Official Duties |
| 1966 | Not the Luckiest Day |
| 1966 | On Thin Ice |
| 1967 | Departure |
| 1967 | Major "Whirlwind" |
| 1967 | No Password Necessary |
| 1971 | Night on the 14th Parallel (also co-directed) |
| 1973 | Seventeen Moments of Spring |
| 1975 | Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat |
| 1976 | The Life and Death of Ferdinand Lues |
| 1978 | No Distinguishing Features |
| 1980 | The Spanish Variant |
| 1980 | The Fiasco of Operation "Terror" |
| 1980 | Ogarev St, 6. |
| 1980 | Petrovka, 38 |
| 1984 | TASS Is Authorized to Announce |
| 1986 | Face to Face |
| 1988 | Big Game |
Vladimir Shredel'
Vladimir Shredel' was born in 1918 in Moscow. He studied at the State Filmmaking Institute under Soviet masters Sergei Eisenstein and Grigorii Kozintsev.
| 1955 | The White Poodle |
| 1956 | The Bride |
| 1958 | Nocturnal Guest |
| 1961 | Weekdays and Weekends |
| 1963 | Two Sundays |
| 1966 | Who Invented the Wheel? |
| 1969 | Five from Heaven |
| 1971 | Night on the 14th Parallel |
| 1972 | Affairs of the Past |
| 1976 | A Long, Long Affair |
| 1978 | Someone Else's |
| 1985 | Three Percent Risk |