Grigori Aleksandrov
1903 - 1983Броненосец Потёмкин
Sergei Eisenstein
Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.
Battleship Potemkin
October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Vladimir Popov, Vasili Nikandrov
Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.
October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
Старое и новое
Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Marfa Lapkina, M. Ivanin
Also known as The Old and the New (Staroye i Novoye), The General Line illustrates Lenin’s stated imperative that the nation move from agrarian to industrial culture in an epic ode to farm-collectivization progress.
The General Line
Весна
Grigori Aleksandrov
Lyubov Orlova, Nikolai Cherkasov
A drab woman scientist, working on machine to harness solar energy, and a pert concert singer look-alike being courted to play her in a movie swap identities and find personal growth, professional success, love, and happiness.
Spring
Сергей Эйзенштейн. Мексиканская фантазия
Sergei Eisenstein, Oleg Kovalov
Alexandra Scheff, Grigori Aleksandrov
Eisenstein shot 50 hours of footage on location in Mexico in 1931 and 32 for what would have become ¡Que viva México!, but was not able to finish the film. Following two wildly different reconstruction attempts in 1939 (Marie Seton's 'Time in the Sun') and 1979 (Grigori Alexandrov's '¡Que viva México!') Kovalov has here compiled another hypothetical version of what Eisenstein's film might have been.
Sergei Eisenstein: Mexican Fantasy
Весёлые ребята
Grigori Aleksandrov
Leonid Utyosov, Lyubov Orlova
Merry Fellows was the first Soviet musical comedy. Set in Odessa and Moscow in the 1930s. Shepherd Kostya Potekhin (Utyosov) is mistaken for an international concert star. He falls in love with Anyuta (Orlova) and plays the "star" for her. In a cascade of comic musical numbers he becomes the leader of a Jazz-Band and gives a hilarious show at the Odessa Music Hall. Now he is destined to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Jolly Fellows
Волга-Волга
Grigori Aleksandrov
Lyubov Orlova, Igor Ilyinsky
Widely claimed to be Joseph Stalin's favorite movie, this classic musical comedy is a must-see. The action takes place on a steamboat on the iconic Volga River, as two groups of performers travel to Moscow to perform in the Moscow Musical Olympiad.
Volga - Volga
Цирк
Grigori Aleksandrov, Isidor Simkov
Lyubov Orlova, Vladimir Volodin
An American circus performer finds herself the victim of racism after it is revealed that she's the mother of a mixed-race child. In the midst of the public scandal, she finds happiness, love, and refuge in the USSR.
Circus
Frauennot - Frauenglück
Eduard Tisse, Grigori Aleksandrov
This film shows contrasting views of women with problematic pregnancies and the outcomes resulting when they seek out a back-alley abortionist, a trained and licensed abortion provider in a clinic, or an obstetrician capable of performing a Caesarian Section. The full film appears to be lost, but shortened versions, including one with dialogue scenes added in Germany in 1935, can be found on the internet. Additionally, Eisenstein's role in making the picture remains unclear: did he direct some or all of it, just edit it, or merely leave it to Alexandrov and Tisse to make? Released in the USA 1930 in a 65 minute (5800 ft.) version with English intertitles and a music track under the title BIRTH.
Misery and Fortune of Woman
Композитор Глинка
Grigori Aleksandrov
Boris Smirnov, Lev Durasov
The young composer Mikhail Glinka performs his new work at a soiree at earl Vielgorsky's house. However, the public is accustomed to Western music, and reacts coldly to the creation of the composer. This makes him very sad, but soon he decides to go learn the art of music in Italy. After returning from Italy, he is full of desire to write national Russian opera. Vasily Zhukovsky proposes a subject: a feat of Ivan Susanin. Tsar Nicholas I change the name of the opera to A Life for the Tsar and assigns a librettist - Baron Rosen. Acquaintance with the future co-author shocked Glinka: Rosen speaks Russian with a noticeable German accent. The premiere was successful, but Glinka was still not entirely happy with the libretto: "False words were written by Rosen". When Nicholas I learned that Ruslan and Lyudmila was written on Pushkin's subject, he sees it as sedition. The bitter experience of the composer brighten his supporters.
Man of Music
Time in the Sun
Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein
Second attempt to create a feature film out of the 200,000-plus feet of film which Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein shot during 1931-32 in Mexico for American socialist author Upton Sinclair, his wife and a small company of investors. The projected film, to be called "Que Viva Mexico", was never completed due to exhaustion of funds and Stalin's demand that Eisenstein return to the USSR (he had been absent since 1929). The first attempt at editing the footage, in the USA, resulted in "Thunder Over Mexico", released in 1934. In 1940, Marie Seton, from the UK, acquired some of the footage from the Sinclairs in an attempt to make a better cutting according to Eisenstein's skeletal outline for the proposed film. This film has apparently been lost.
Time in the Sun
Светлый путь
Grigori Aleksandrov
Lyubov Orlova, Evgeniy Samoylov
Tanya Morozova, an illiterate but industrious textile factory worker, finds happiness through her education and the Stakhanovite movement. She becomes a shock labourer and ascends through the Party ranks, ultimately being elected as a member of the Supreme Soviet.
The Shining Path
