Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Czar, a young peasant girl (Dolores Del Rio) rises to stardom as "the Red Dancer of Moscow." "(Raoul) Walsh, as commercial a director as one could envision, tried to inject almost overpowering visual art into (this) late silent.... Although its story was a novelettish excursion into the then-fashionable though little understood (by Hollywood) Russian Revolution, its camerawork (primarily by Charles Clarke) and its sets and overall art direction (by Ben Carre) were outstanding.... Carre's superb sets for a Russian prison camp-stylized, expressionistic, and realistic, all at the same time-appeared early in the film and created a sober tone which was never erased, despite the speed and camera mobility which characterized Walsh's treatment of a basically straightforward action melodrama." William K. Everson, American Silent Film