User Reviews

It was not uncommon,as the Nazis consolidated power in Germany,for the film industry they took over to produce distorted and propagandistic stories about the countries that opposed them,such as in this case the USSR.while the basic facts about the Bolshevik Seizure in 1917 of the crucial warm water port of Sebastopol on the Black Sea are not disputed (such as the summary firing squad shootings depicted of suspected pro Czarist prisoners) nothing is said about the background or the ideology of the Reds,they are simply shown as a rabble strewing themselves among the palace and the music hall.The story involves the aristocratic Governor,played by silent veteran Theodor Loos, his daughter Manya played by Camilla Horn,and her boyfriend the Count Kostya who later comes to her rescue.In the hubbub during the Red takeover she and her father take refuge in a music hall where she is given a job playing piano and singing.at the conclusion,the pro Czarist soldiers temporarily stop some of the executions,but then sail away on their Battleship,hoping to find somewhere to escape to.Director Karl Anton makes this material somewhat more interesting than it sounds,with the moody camera work and quick cutting.