Youth and war
The Soviet filmmaker and screenwriter Alexander Alov was born on September 26, 1923, in Kharkov. His father was a scientist in agriculture and soil science, while his mother worked in a library. The family moved to Moscow in 1929. At eighteen, Alov joined the 1st Special Cavalry Regiment on the Western Front, witnessing firsthand the defense of Moscow.
In December 1942, Alov returned to the front and served as a Red Army soldier in the 210th Army Reserve Rifle Regiment until May 1945. He helped organize improvised amateur performances during the war. Alov fought along the Don, Voronezh, Stepnoy, and the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, taking part in the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the Belgorod-Kharkov operation, and other major offensives. A head wound from a fragment occurred in late January 1945.
According to Vladimir Naumov, a future colleague, the war forged Alov’s character yet did not embitter him. Naumov’s recollections were cited by Alov’s daughter Lyubov in the book Alov and Naumov. “All of Alov’s front-line stories, told by those who knew the war deeply, were filled with humor and sometimes crude truths. It seems the memory resisted the tragic because living under its weight is almost impossible”, Naumov explained.
Yet the veterans’ past left a lasting mark on Alov, shaping his health in later years.
Entering cinema
After returning to civilian life, Alov enrolled at VGIK in the directing workshop of Igor Savchenko. Over time, Savchenko’s students rose to prominence, including Alexei Korenev (Big Change, For Family Circumstances) and Marlen Khutsiev (Spring on Zarechnaya Street, Ilyich’s Police Station), among others.
Following graduation, Alov met Naumov, and together they assisted Savchenko in shooting Taras Shevchenko (1951) at the Kiev Film Studio. When Savchenko died unexpectedly, the two students finished the project on their own. At a time when fewer than ten films were released annually, Stalin personally reviewed edits and passed them to filmmakers.
Interestingly, the friendship and joint career of the two directors began with a quarrel. Naumov recalled a real creative clash over the project Steelworkers that never materialized. Alov believed he had out-argued Naumov, but Naumov showed that the dispute had started in Alov’s room and ended in the kitchen, where Alov blocked the door with a mop. “Who beat whom?” Alov joked, noting that his peace was a small victory. They soon reconciled and kept working closely for decades.
Tandem with Naumov
The two directors brought contrasting temperaments: Naumov, the ideas man with eccentric energy, and Alov, the calm, thoughtful strategist who refined his partner’s concepts. They shared dreams, turned many into scripts, and debated passionately. Naumov once explained that their collaboration thrived on productive conflict. “We were different people. He carried a war-roiled past; I arrived at VGIK when I was 16. When we fought, rehearsed, or discussed, the room heated up. A great artist once said the best art comes from clashing with oneself. If we disagreed, something new emerged and weak ideas were abandoned,” Naumov noted.
One of their early joint projects was Troubled Youth, inspired by Belyaev’s Old Fortress trilogy, which explored youth during the Ukrainian Civil War. They continued the revolutionary theme with Pavel Korchagin, based on Nikolai Ostrovsky’s How the Steel Was Tempered, with Vasily Lanov in the lead. The third film in the revolutionary series was The Wind, featuring Alexander Demyanenko in his debut. The duo even recognized a future comedy icon in Gaidai.
In 1957, Naumov and Alov shot the war drama Peace to the Enterer at Mosfilm. Culture Minister Ekaterina Furtseva criticized the appearance of soldiers in ragged clothes, but Alov defended the authenticity, recalling a frontline scent and feel from his own experiences. The film was applauded domestically and earned Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, along with the Pasinetti Cup.
In 1962, the duo released Coin, an almanac film composed of three shorts set in the American Depression era. It aired on Soviet television and drew an audience of about 4.5 million. Not every project fared as well; A Bad Joke, adapted from Dostoevsky, lingered on the shelves for two decades before arriving in 1987. Despite the censorship, the pair managed to shoot Running, an adaptation of Bulgakov’s play, avoiding wholesale suppression of performances.
One standout project was Tehran-43, a detective story featuring a mix of Soviet and international talent, including Natalya Belokhvostikova, Igor Kostolevsky, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Alain Delon, and Kurd Jurgens. They also produced The Legend of Thiel, a four-part epic based on Charles de Coster, and The Shore, a war drama drawn from Yuri Bondarev. In 1963, Naumov became artistic director of the newly formed creative union at the film studio. That same year, Alov suffered a heart attack during filming The Shore in Riga and passed away soon after, just short of his sixtieth birthday. Naumov mourned his loss and directed a film about his companion, titled Alov. He would later admit that a part of himself remained with Alov for a lifetime.
Naumov often reflected that their paths intertwined for 38 years, with 33 years spent as a unified directing duo. After Alov’s passing, Naumov continued to create alone, delivering works such as Handless Clocks, Mona Lisa on Asphalt, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, and The Story of Tsar Saltan, a project completed with his daughter Natalya. Naumov lived to age 93, passing away on November 29, 2021. [citation: Naumov interview excerpts and archival interviews]