Director
Sergei Eisenstein

Cast
Aleksandr Kerensky: Vladimir Popov
V. I. Lenin: Vasili Nikandrov
Konovalov: Layaschenko
Skobolev: Chibisov
Terestsenko: Boris Livanov
Kishkin: Mikholyev
Bolshevik: N. Podvoisky
Verderevsky: Smelsky
German soldier: Eduard Tisse

Commissioned by the Soviet Central Committee in 1927 to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the October Revolution, October (also known as Ten Days that Shook the World) is the last significant silent film of legendary director Sergei Eisenstein.

The Russian government wanted the finest documentary possible, so they assigned their finest director the task of re-creating the Russian Revolution, and gave him immense resources to create his film. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Eisenstein's films conform to the party line. Yet the great director is still able to find enough artistic license to experiment.

Eisenstein's epic drama comes as close to being an eyewitness documentary account about Lenin and the Socialist Revolution as possible since Nikolai Podvolsky and other leaders of the uprising served as consultants. Filming the events in their actual locations in the then-Petrograd  gave the film added credibility that historians would later find especially fascinatingespecially notable is the storming of the actual Winter Palace. On the other hand, modern viewers with little interest in the Russian Revolution will think October overdoes its history, but it remains a landmark piece of cinema for so many reasons.