“Samuel Goldwyn as the producer and Lillian Hellman, the writer, have teamed for one of the most spectacular productions of the season on telling of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet. […]Lewis Milestone obviously was trying to emphasize the ‘color’ of the Russian people in his earlier scenes, but when once the action got under way […] he’s pointed it up with much emphasis. It is, generally, a noteworthy directorial contribution, as is James Wong Howe’s photography”. (Variety, Od. 13, 1943).

“North Star traced its origin to early 1942 when Harry Hopkins, FDR’s alter-ego, approached Hellman about doing a documentary with on-the-scene photography. Excited by the idea, she began planning with two of Hollywood’s top talents -director William Wyler and Gregg Toland. […] The Soviets, through none other than Foreign Minister Molotov, agreed to co-operate. […] Various delays ensued, however. Then Wyler enlisted in the Army Air Force […]. [Hellman] and Goldwyn agreed on what she later described as a “simple, carefully researched, semidocumentary movie” that would be shot on his ten acre backlot. […] Goldwyn’s “bigtime treatment” weighted down the script with an over-abundance of talent. […] OWl reviewers praised Hellman’s script as “a magnificent job of humanizing the plain people of Russia”. […] Russian leaders appear to have viewed The North Star with hilarity mixed with a keen appreciation of its propaganda potential for the masses. When Lillian Hellman visited the U.S.S.R. in 1944 (…)she found that in the capital the film was viewed as a ‘great joke’”. (G. Black, C.Koppes, Hollywood Goes to War, University of California Press, 1987)

Only seven years after writing The North Star, Hellman was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Her film, made partially at the request of the United States government, became part of the evidence against her. Blacklisted in Hollywood, she wrote only one other film (The Chase, Columbia, 1966). Five year’s after Hellman’s HUAC appearances, The North Star was released for television as Armored Attack. Heavy-handed editing and an incongruous voiceover narration turned the film into anti-soviet propaganda about the invasion of Hungary in 1956”. (Brett Westbrook, Fighting for What’s Good in Film History, Vol. 4, 1990)