'Amazing May', the 8 of May, Only «Old Men» Are Going to Battle

Only Old Men Are Going to Battle (В бой идут одни «старики») is a 1973 Soviet film about World War II fighter pilots, written and directed by Leonid Bykov, who also played the lead role as the squadron commander. The story is based on the memoirs of Russian fighter ace Vitaly Popkov.

The title comes from two scenes in the film, where the squadron is facing very hard dogfights with German fighter planes, so only "old men" (i.e. veterans) are sent up, while those fresh from flying school have to wait on the ground together with the mechanics. Soon, of course, the newcomers have replaced most of those veterans and have become "old men" themselves, taking to the skies while a new group of newcomers wait on the ground with the mechanics...

The film won the first prize in the 7th All-Union Film Festival in Baku in 1974.

Screenplay by Leonid Bykov, Yevgeni Onopriyenko and Aleksandr Satsky.

In 2009 a colorized version was released for TV and DVD, which resulted in a legal battle in Ukrainian courts between the copyright owners, Leonid Bykov's daughter and Ukrainian Dovzhenko Film Studios, and the company behind the colorization, as the copyright owners claim that the colorization has been done against the wishes of Bykov, who intentionally chose to do the film in black and white, in order to match newly shot scenes with the newsreel material in the film. In May 2011, the District Court of Kiev ruled that the colorization was a breach of copyright and that the colorized version can't be showed or rented in Ukraine.

Cast

  Leonid Bykov - "Maestro" Titarenko, commander of the 2nd "Singing" squadron

  Sergey Podhornyi - "Darkie", fighter pilot

  Sergei Ivanov - "Grasshopper", fighter pilot

Famous quotations from the film

... Арфы нет, возьмите бубен. /Титаренко/

... Макарыч, принимай аппарат! Во! Махнул не глядя!... И в тот же миг влюбленное созданье, включив форсаж, умчалось на свиданье. /Кузнечик/

... Как сказал Шекспир в восемнадцатом... нет, в девятнадцатом сонете: "Гуляй, Вася!" /Зоя/

... Тебя я понял, умолкаю! Не то по шее получу и подвиг свой не совершу! /Кузнечик/

... Пилотом можешь ты не быть, летать научим все равно, но музыкантом быть обязан. /Титаренко/

- Ну как у тебя там? Как у тебя там, Маэстро?
- Нормально... Падаю... /Комдив - Титаренко/

... Не махни на танк, "не глядя"... /Комдив/

... Самое тяжелое в нашей работе - ждать... /Макарыч/

... Нет, это ты хорошо придумал, гм... Самое главное - вовремя... /Титаренко/

...Будем жить! /Скворцов/

A thing that became greatly famous after this film is a song ‘Smuglyanka’ which is sang in the film. Read the next post about it.

You may watch this film in our Russian cinema club. The screening will take place a day before the Victory Day, on the 8th of May in the Russian language center, at 7 pm

Admission is free, however please contact us in advance to reserve a seat ( 2598 8389 2598 8389 or 2teacher@rlc.hk).
The screening will take place at the following address: Room 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Centre, No. 2-12 Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan.

the information is taken from the Wikipedia 

the quotations and the photos are taken from the web-site dedicated to Leonyd Bykov