Little Red Devils (1923)

Directed by Ivan Perestiani; script by Ivan Perestiani and Pavel Blyakhin; camera by Alexander Digmelov; movie poster by M. Glazman.

Based on the short story of the same name by Pavel Blyakhin, the film is set in the Ukraine during the Civil War. A railway settlement is captured by Nestor Makhno’s band of Ukrainian separatists. A dying worker, Petrov, asks his children Misha and Dunyasha to fight the occupants. Along with the street acrobat Tom Jackson, the two children become spies for the Red Cavalry. They manage to capture Makhno and are decorated for bravery.

Ivan Perestiani (1870–1939) shot this first Soviet adventure film, which was watched by many generations of Soviet children. The sound track was made in 1943.