Released:
1926-03-15

Overview:
Typically of the heady days of early Soviet cinema, this is constructed according to the fast, sharp editing principles advocated by Eisenstein, complete with symbolic inserts; but in terms of subject matter, it's much less explicitly political than most movies emerging from Russia in the '20s. Chronicling a young sailor's descent into a murky, treacherous underworld of pimps and thieves, after having encountered a Louise Brooks lookalike at a fairground and missed his departing boat, it's a lively moral fable that delights in vivid visual effects and quirky characterisations. If the plot occasionally reveals gaping holes, and the tacked-on ending urging the clearance of the Leningrad slums seems to be rather gratuitous, there's enough going on to keep one attentive and amused.

Directors:
Leonid Trauberg, Grigori Kozintsev

Runtime:
0h 40min

Genre:
Action, Crime

• Cast:
• 
  Pyotr Sobolevsky
  as
  Vanya Shorin, Red fleet sailor
• 
  Lyudmila Semyonova
  as
  Valya
• 
  Sergei Gerasimov
  as
  The Question Man
• 
  Emil Gal
  as
  Koko, vaudeville performer
• 
  Antonio Tserep
  as
  Tavern Owner