Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!

Yesterday was the Fourth of July – or, as we know it here in the United States, Independence Day, a time for celebrating the revolution fought to gain our nation its liberty.

But that was yesterday. Today, we’re going to look at how they celebrate a revolution from the other side of the Iron Curtain, with the 1925 Soviet film Battleship Potemkin. The historical events it’s based on actually occurred a decade prior to the Russian Revolution, but you wouldn’t know that from this picture. Here, the mutineers aboard the Potemkin are Bolshevik heroes who kickstart the revolution early, the Tsarist troops commit an entirely fictional massacre to make them even more hissworthy, and everything is blown up and exaggerated, both to serve as propaganda for the newly formed Soviet Union, and to make the film as epic and emotional as possible.

And by golly, it does that in spades! This is one of those your-favorite-filmmaker’s-favorite-film sort of movies – it pioneered filming and editing techniques that are still being imitated today, and created one of the most celebrated movies of the Silent Era. A stone cold classic.

As for our opening cartoon, given it must accompany a tale of daring seamen, I naturally chose one starring that most daring seaman of all, Popeye the Sailor Man! Though, in this cartoon, Popeye trades the seas for the skies, hopping aboard airplanes to battle Bluto and rescue Olive Oyl high up in the clouds. I’d tell you it’s full of wonderful slapstick and cartoon physics, but I already told you it’s a Popeye cartoon – you should take that as a given.

So, c’mon you salt dogs, and sail the seven seas to find what treasures the public domain has to offer!

Opening Cartoon:

Feature Presentation: