Today in Labor History December 21, 1925: Serge Eisenstein's silent movie The Battleship Potemkin premiered on this date in Moscow. This silent film, which inspired many later film greats, depicts the 1905 mutiny of sailors against their Czarist commanders during the Russo-Japanese war. The massacre on the Odessa steps scene was so iconic that dozens of later films paid homage to it, including Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables,” Peter Sellers’s “The Magic Christian,” Woody Allen’s “Bananas.” The film also influenced artist Francis Bacon. San Francisco’s avant-garde Club Foot Orchestra recreated the original score. Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin and Billy Wilder all considered it one of the greatest films ever made.

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