On August 24th of 1940 a group of cameramen cross the immense territory of the Soviet Union before it was attacked by Nazi Germany, and capture multiple aspects of life in this new world.

Following an introduction by Bing Crosby, the Cinerama screen widens for scenes of landscapes, cities, peoples, and entertainments of the Soviet Union. Highlights include the historic buildings and churches of Moscow, as the Kremlin; its subway and streets, a spring carnival, the seaside resorts on the Black Sea, a trip down the Volga River, skiers, a troika racing along a snow-covered road, a helicopter view of the North Pole, an Antarctic whale hunt, the capture of a wild boar in the Moyun-Kum of Central Asia, a race by reindeer-drawn sleds, divers in the Sea of Okhotsk, battling an octopus, the capture of antelopes, rafting logs down the Tisza River, and the development of new towns in Siberia. Other scenes include a visit to the Moscow Circus, where the renowned clown Oleg Popov performs, the dancing of the Moiseyev and Piatnitsky companies, and excerpts from the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater Ballet.

A feature-length documentary based on film reports from the Spanish civil war.

Soviet produced look at the trials that followed the fall of Germany. Deadly serious, this film is almost too somber to be taken with a straight face since the narration often comes across as rather preachy and purple. Its pure propaganda in the "we were right to try these people" sort of way and is clearly biased against the defendants who had just set Europe aflame. The take is rather odd and unlike any thing that I've run across in American or in Western European films on the same subject. It seems to be trying to over explain why the leaders of Germany were tried, which in retrospect is painfully obvious. Its clear from the lean toward the Soviet take of events and of its lingering on the speeches by the Soviet prosecutors who was behind the film. Its not bad but the heavy handedness of the presentation becomes wearing after a while. If you keep in mind when the film was made its an intriguing look at how the events were viewed during their own historical period. However its probably too long at an hour, with its ponderous preaching taking away from any value the film might have had.