Esfir Shub used newsreel, archival , and salvaged footage, including the Tsar's home movies, to put together the epic Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (Padenie dinastii Romanovykh), in 1927. The film deliberately and convincingly shows the negative aspects of the gentry and clergy in the years leading up to the Russian Revolution. The scenes of soldiers during World War I and workers from all over Russia are intercut with set pieces showing their fat cat exploiters. Tsar Nicholas abdicates at the end, and a few triumphant views of Lenin are included. Is this film the ancestor to today's archival compilation docs?
