Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

"Balalaika" is strictly for fans of Hollywood's Golden Age. If you are one, it's got a great cast of character actors you will recognize pretty quickly and you will appreciate the singing of Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey. If you appreciate good acting, Eddy is passable and Massey, not so. He is his usual limited self but she comes across as cold and humorless, which is the polar opposite of Jeanette MacDonald.The storyline is thin and unconvincing, sort of like "The Student Prince"; he is royalty, she is not, so he passes himself off as a peasant to win her hand. An interesting aspect of the picture is that it treats the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the dissolution of the upper class. Here, many of Russian royalty end up in Paris after WWI in menial jobs, much to their sadness and chagrin. Can't recall the subject having been broached on film before.In short, the plot is forgettable, the cast is interesting and the music carries the day. Not for younger audiences but for those of us who appreciate Hollywood's past.

In "Balalaika," Nelson Eddy plays Prince Peter Karagin, an officer in the Cossack army. One night he sees the beautiful Lydia Marakova, who sings in a St. Petersburg café. Lydia is truly of the people, not one to like royalty, so he poses as a voice student in order to meet her. He wins her over. In fact, Lydia, her father, and her brother are part of a revolutionary movement. When Peter and his Cossacks break up a rally and her brother is killed, both learn the truth about one another. However, Lydia is still in love with him. When she learned that the rebels were going to assassinate Peter and his uncle at the opera house on her opening night, she tells him not to come, that she will be too nervous with him and his uncle there.On stage, just as she feels she can relax because they're not there, they show up in their opera box. In the middle of the opera, war with Germany is announced.Not much of a movie - Massey is lovely, kind of a cross between the young, stunning Zsa Zsa Gabor and Scarlett Johansson -- but in order to play opposite the wooden and unexciting Eddy, you need Jeannette McDonald's fire and sparkle. What Eddy had going for him, besides good looks, was one of the greatest voices in film, and he sings here like an absolute dream. Massey had a pretty voice, but her top was screechy, and in the first number she sings, she's flat.The rest of the cast is good - Lionel Atwill, Frank Morgan, Charles Ruggles, and C. Aubrey Smith, all top pros.Mildly entertaining, notable for Eddy's vocals.

This movie asks the question, can a Cossack boy and a Bolshevik girl find true happiness either in old mother Russia or the new Soviet Union?In this movie the answer is no. Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey are attracted to each other, but background and politics strive to keep them apart.While he was at MGM, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald did very few films with other leads and in this one Nelson gets to act with the women who he did the second amount of co-starring with. Ilona Massey cuts a fine figure as a revolutionary with her father, Lionel Atwill who is a music teacher by day and a Bolshevik by night.Nelson Eddy apparently liked Russian themes. He did two other films with Russian elements in them, The Chocolate Soldier and Northwest Passage. His singing in Russian of The Volga Boatman is the high point of Balalaika.My favorite performer in this however is Charlie Ruggles. He plays Nelson Eddy's orderly and he plays the fool quite well. He steers clear of politics, but ultimately winds up the only real winner in this movie.Not the best or the worst of Nelson Eddy's screen efforts, but enjoyable.

I am generally a soft touch for movies that have fictional characters in a well-known historical setting, and this one is no exception. Based on a 1936 underrated musical that opened in London, and set on the eve of both World War I and the Russian revolution, it involves a Russian Prince, Nelson Eddy, and a singer and revolutionary, Ilona Massey, who deceive each other as to who they really are, and fall in love. But even after they discover their true identities, they remain in love until separated by the war and then the revolution.The sets and costumes are first-rate and director Reinhold Schunzel keeps the film moving at a nice pace and handles the crowd scenes extremely well. Mild comedy is provided by Charlie Ruggles and Frank Morgan. Although I'm not much of a fan of Nelson Eddy - he's somewhat bland in his acting - he does have a good voice, so I did enjoy lots of his singing. The stirring "Ride, Cossack, Ride" while the Cossacks are on horseback riding towards the camera, which keeps moving back to avoid a collision, is beautifully photographed. His rendition of "Silent Night" in German, while in the trenches during WW I, answering the Austrian enemy soldiers singing of that song, was a wonderful tender sequence. Eddy also sings the Toreador song from Bizet's "Carmen" which will surely will be liked by opera fans.But I loved best the last 15 minutes or so, when the Russian emigrés who have gathered in Paris after the war, meet at the Paris version of the Balalaika Cafe to celebrate the Russian New Year. Instead of the joy you would expect on such an occasion, you see the sadness in everyone's eyes at having had to leave their homeland. Frank Morgan sings about his "Land of Dreams," and it moved me to tears.