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The Murderers are Coming (Russian: Убийцы выходят на дорогу, Ubiytsi vikhodyat na dorogu) is a 1942 Soviet war film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and Yuri Tarich based on the 1938 play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht. The film was not allowed to screen by Soviet censors.

Plot

The film paints a vivid picture of "two Germanys," weaving multiple storylines to explore the human and moral complexities within Nazi Germany.

One narrative follows drunken soldiers of the Third Reich wandering through unfamiliar streets, discussing national unity. Startled by an old man peeking from a window, they panic and shoot him before fleeing. Another thread involves a woman who receives a "gift from the Führer" as part of the Winter Relief Program—potatoes, apples, and five marks—despite having donated double the amount herself. Her pregnant daughter resents the gesture, revealing her husband’s frustration with rising prices. The soldiers' search of the young woman’s home ends in tension, and the mother hurls a piece of the gifted apple at them in helpless defiance. In another scene, a young couple, Anna and Theo, argue about their strained finances and the reality of life under Hitler, with Theo dismissing Anna's concerns. As suspicions grow, Anna finds chalk marks on her back, a chilling sign of surveillance, and warns her brother Franz of potential danger.

Other vignettes delve into the lives of a conflicted family and workers grappling with war’s brutality. A husband and wife fear retribution after their son, a member of the Hitler Youth, reads aloud about executions and seemingly leaves to report them. Their terror dissipates when he returns with candy instead. A factory worker's wife, mourning her brother's death on the Eastern Front, shares unsettling rumors of German pilots executing parachuting comrades to protect secrets. Her anguished, anti-regime remarks horrify her neighbor and husband. Meanwhile, on the snow-covered terrain of the Soviet Union, three looters abandon a wounded comrade. Upon realizing they've left stolen goods with him, two return to find only sled tracks and their partner missing. Haunted by these signs, they attempt to flee but encounter Soviet partisans. In a final act of defiance, the captain tries to overpower a female partisan but is fatally shot, leaving the partisans to recover their wounded prisoner.

Cast

• Mikhail Astangov - Franz
• Boris Blinov - Theo
• Sofiya Magarill
• Ada Vojtsik - Marta
• Oleg Zhakov
• Olga Zhiznyeva - Clara
• Aleksandr Antonov - Müller, German soldier

External links

• The Murderers Are Coming at IMDb

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• 1942 films
• Mosfilm films
• Films based on works by Bertolt Brecht
• Films directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
• Soviet black-and-white films
• Soviet war films
• 1942 war films
• Soviet World War II films
• Russian World War II films
• Kazakhstani World War II films
• 1940s Russian-language films
• Soviet-era Kazakhstani films
• 1940s Soviet films
• Russian-language war films
• 1940s Soviet film stubs
• World War II film stubs