Vsevolod Pudovkin

“The Magic Beam” is a film essay woven together from newsreels and documentary material from different decades, fragments of hundreds of non-fiction and fiction Soviet films of the 1910s-1960s.

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This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.

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A biography of a famous Russian Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov.

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Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.

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War-time satire about the inhumanity of the nazis. Based on Samuil Marshak's play which was extremely popular among soldiers at the front.

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The film deals with a Russian battalion under siege by the Germans during the Second World War.

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In the short-lived Commune of Paris, a conscripted soldier falls in love with a Communard saleswoman. As the army cracks down on the revolutionaries, the soldier is forced to fight against the Commune, and the pair's love is put to the test.

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Actress Brio working in a cafe "The Happy Canary", does not suspect that her new acquaintances Brianski and Lugovec are Communists sent by an underground committee to fight the enemy's counter-intelligence.

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The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza has never really chosen between him and the more conventional Victor Karenin, a rival for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with Gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a Gypsy singer, Masha.

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Shortly before the outbreak of WWI, a peasant from rural Russia arrives in St. Petersburg to find work.

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A Soviet woman is caught between her husband and son, who find themselves on opposing sides of the Russian Revolution.

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Partially lost.

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In a capitalist country, workers are heavily repressed but manage to get a Death Ray to fight back. Partially lost movie.

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An ignorant and prejudiced American’s visit of Soviet Russia goes off the rails after his luggage is stolen and he is separated from his bodyguard.

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A down on his luck peasant goes to fight in World War I and returns home a hero. Partially lost.

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An agit-film about the struggle of Ukrainian peasants against the White Poles. A young woman, the daughter of a blacksmith taken prisoner by the White Poles, and a Red commander organise a partisan unit. One scene depicts the capture of a Polish landowner attempting to elude capture. He had been hiding from the Red Army soldiers in a barrel. The peasants nailed the barrel shut and, having inscribed the words: ‘To Warsaw – to Mr Piłsudski’, threw it into the Dnieper. Lost film.

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The film deals with a Russian battalion under siege by the Germans during the Second World War.

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Brecht's play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".

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In a capitalist country, workers are heavily repressed but manage to get a Death Ray to fight back. Partially lost movie.

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An ignorant and prejudiced American’s visit of Soviet Russia goes off the rails after his luggage is stolen and he is separated from his bodyguard.

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The Government of the fictional country Norland has unleashed a war with the neighboring Galikania and is suffering one defeat after another. A group of conspirators who were dissatisfied with this state of affairs, led by the Social Democrat Frank Frey arrange a coup to overthrew the emperor of Norland. But the working class does not like the new order either. Workers expose Frank Frey's policy of continuing the war and a revolution breaks out in the country. The leader of the socialist revolution becomes a mechanic of the name Franz Stark.

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