Russia, at the beginning of the 1800s. Vladimir Dubroskij, a cadet, returns home to find that his property has been confiscated by the evil Kirilla Petrovic. After going into hiding, he organizes a rebellion against the usurper with a band under the name Black Eagle. One day Dubroskij runs into Petrovic’s beautiful daughter… Freda’s first post-war film, the third cinematic adaptation of Pushkin’s story (after Clarence Brown’s American version with Rudolph Valentino and Alex Ivanovskij’s Russian version from ’37) was a huge commercial success: the top box office in Italy. “Freda uses adventure film to intensify the sense of vitality as opposed to a funereal ode to form (just compare it to Castellani’s Un colpo di pistola, another Puškin adaptation). Freda is also keen on fully drawing out individualist heroes who make their own destiny no matter what obstacles they encounter. In this regard, Freda went against the mainstream. He turned his back on the unanimist grisaille of Neorealism, its fundamentally explicit resignation and its portentous attention to the present. His is the work of a multifaceted master of style whose preferences and choices often go in the direction of the general public’s taste. Skillful découpage; splendid stylization of the reconstruction; vivacious collective action scenes, duels and chases; imagination and power: why should these qualities only be associated with American cinema?”

Jacques Lourcelles