The red shop

The Red Tent (Russian Красная палатка, transliterated Krásnaya palatka, and Italian La tenda rossa) is a co-production between the Soviet Union and Italy, directed in 1971 by Mikhail Kalatózov. It is an impressive story of survival in the ice of the Arctic, based on a true event: the tragic expedition of the Italian N-class airship commanded by Umberto Nobile and the rescue of the survivors weeks later.

Plot

Umberto Nobile (Peter Finch) was the commander of the airship Italia, which in 1928 flew to the North Pole and crashed. The crew lived in extreme conditions in the polar cold, in a red tent. Fortunately, the radio operator managed to fix the radio and communicate with the outside world. Finally they were rescued. Back in Italy, Umberto Nobile is haunted by the ghosts of the tragedy and the men who died on the expedition.

Awards

• 1972 - A nomination for the "Golden Globe" award as Best Foreign Film in English Language (Golden Globes, USA)

Music

The music for the Soviet version of the film is composed by Aleksandr Zatsepin, and for the rest of the countries, by Ennio Morricone.

Curiosities

The film is based on a novel of the same name by Russian writer Yuri Nagibin. Nagibin himself began writing the script with Kalatozov himself, but when he was asked for a bigger role for Claudia Cardinale (whose character in reality didn't even exist), he withdrew, having to complete the script by others.
Three different films were made, each one with its different soundtrack. The Soviet version was 158 minutes, in which the work of the rescuers was emphasized. The Italian version was 132 minutes long and contained scenes not seen in the other two versions. The international version was cut to 121 minutes, slightly modifying the soundtrack of the Italian version. In the international and Italian versions it was decided not to translate the original Russian parts.
The budget was very high for its time (10 million US dollars), with a more than respectable cast of actors from both sides of the Iron Curtain, but its impact was not very prominent outside the USSR and Italy., which made the film loss-making. An obsolete style has been attributed to it compared to other productions of the same time in the West.