Circus (1936 movie)
The Soviet classic melodramatic comedy "Circus", made in 1936, was directed by Grigori Alexandrov. By his own words, it was conceived "as an eccentric comedy...a real side splitter."
Starring the glamorous and immensely popular Lubov Orlova (Alexandrov's wife), the first recognized star of Soviet cinema and a gifted singer, the film contains several songs which instantly became Soviet classics.
Orlova plays an American circus artist who, after giving birth to a black baby, immediately becomes a victim of racism and finds refuge, love and happiness in the Stalinist USSR. Her black son is embraced by friendly Soviet people. The movie climaxes with a lullaby being sung to the baby by representatives of various Soviet ethnicities. The movie was still very popular after World War II. Ironically, after Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948-1953 against rootless cosmopolitanism, the Yiddish verse sung by Solomon Mikhoels was cut out from this movie supposedly promoting the idea of fraternity of peoples. It was shown in its entirety only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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