Balalaika

Posing as a student to gain access to Ilona Massey and her revolutionary friends and family, well-meaning Czarist prince Peter (Nelson Eddy) offers the traditional Russian song, with support from Dalies Frantz (on piano), Lionel Atwill, Abner Biberman et al, in MGM’s Balalaika, 1939.

With grumbling from her brother and father (Dalies Frantz, Lionel Atwill), both musicians and secret anti-Czarist revolutionaries, Hungarian-born Ilona Massey’s first song (an original by Bob Wright and Chet Forrest for MGM) in her first starring role as singer Lydia, in a Petersburg cabaret, in Balalaika, 1939, also starring Nelson Eddy.

Refugees from the Russian Revolution build a new life in Paris in Balalaika (1939) starring Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey.