Movie #25 The Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015648/

A silent movie. To me, for the most part they don't hold up. I've seen probably 10 and only really like 2 of them. And we are talking about the classics. I respect them. Take this movie for instance, it looks nice for being almost 90 years old but it's full of overacting and bad music. Personally I watch these movies just to check them off a list to say I have seen them. This is just my opinion though. There are people who can sit down and really enjoy a silent movie. I will say that silent horror movies are pretty eerie because of the creepy music and over acting.

There are 5 parts to the movie First is called Men and Maggots. I guess workers all over Russia are thinking of revolting. These dudes are all sleeping in hammocks on a moving ship which would cause me to revolt. All they have to eat is rotten, maggot filled meat. One of the guys says even my dog wouldn't eat this. I bet neither would Randy Moss' dog. A doctor inspects the meat and says that it's still good enough to eat. Where did this guy go to school, Valencia? The men are starting to grumble revolt. When I think of Russian people, I don't think they are all talk. I've seen enough of the Bourne movies to know what they are like. Back to the movie, the admiral says whoever doesn't eat the meat will be hung (hanged). I definitely believe that.

Part two is called Drama on Deck. A few men start the revolt. The officers corner them off and the admiral has them covered in a canvas. He then calls for a bunch of them to shoot into the canvas and kill them. Brutal. At the last second the men realize what they are being asked and it's a full on revolution on the ship. A white Russian priest with Don King hair comes out and just acts creepy. I still don't know what side he is supposed to be on. The fight is pretty massive. Officers start getting thrown overboard left and right. I mean port and starboard yuk yuk yuk. One of the men yells “To the bottom feed the worms”. Hardcore. The fight is over but the admiral somehow manages to shoot the leader of the revolt in the back of the head. It takes him like two minutes to die but it finally happens.

Next part is A Dead Man Calls for Justice. The crew are now in charge of the ship. They head back to land and carry the dead revolt leader with them. He ends up being a rallying point for everyone else to revolt. I have another point to make. I'm not 100% sure about those head wraps all the Russian women seem to be wearing. They just aren't that hot. They keep talking about this food Borscht which I had to look up. It's a beetroot soup. Not something to fight over Russia. Some rich guy yells “Smash the Jews”. He gets dealt with. There are things to yell in a crowd of people and things not to yell. “Let's party!”=yell. “You go girl”=don't yell. “Mom meatloaf!”=yell. “Smash the Jews!”=don't yell. People start going nuts for revolution and say tomorrow is ours.

Part four is The Odessa Staircase. I don't know if it's Russia or the 20s, but there are a ton of ugly people in this scene. All of these revolters are on a staircase in Odessa I guess. The army walks out of a building at the top and just starts gunning people down. Men, women, children and mixes of the three are all wiped out.

SPOILER OF A 87 YEAR OLD MOVIE.

The Last Part is Rendez-Vous with a squadron. Back to the men on the ship. They are about to be attacked by every ship in the Russian fleet, or that's how it seems. The squadron is about to make it rain on the Potemkin but at the last second you see they are all cheering. They all mutinied and killed their evil Tsarist admirals too. Hooray. The end.

BACK TO THIS CENTUARY

Favorite Scene : The stair scene goes on forever and just a murderfest. Not that I like murderfests, it's just powerful.

Favorite Lines : The silent ones

Rating : I just looked this movie up on wikipedia and it was called the greatest movie ever made at the 1958 world's fair. I'm still giving it 6.5 sour patch kids. It's just not my kind of movie. Super well done for sure but I definitely don't need to see it again.

Alternate Ending : Seems obvious. The Potemkin gets blown to pieces. The Tsar's stay in charge. Tsar's in Charge sounds like a great name for a sitcom. Don't steal it!.

What I would do if I was the main character : There really isn't a main character in this. If I was in Russia in 1905 I would flee to America. You know you would do. There I would be able to do things like eat. Looked like food was a real problem for Russia at the time. Then you could say you saw the cubs win their last world series too.

What happens in the Sequel : I like to think it's called The Hunt for Red October. A Scottish guy playing as a Soviet finally has the courage to stick it to the man.  

(subtitles)