The Devil's Wheel
Чёртово колесо
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.
Production Countries
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Cast
Arnold Arnold
as Editor
Emil Gal
as Koko, vaudeville performer
Sergei Martinson
as Orchestra conductor
Pyotr Sobolevsky
as Vanya Shorin, Red fleet sailor
Lyudmila Semyonova
as Valya
Sergei Gerasimov
as The Question Man
Yanina Zheymo
as Hooligan girl
Aleksandr Kostomolotsky
Aleksei Kapler
Andrei Kostrichkin
as Drummer
