In between Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Ptushko's epic fantasies Sampo and The Tale of Time Lost, he delivered this beguiling tale of romantic destiny that falls a bit outside of the traditional fairy tale format. Based on a 1923 novel by Alexander Grin, Scarlet Sails is still chock full of the director's visual magic (nobody shoots clouds like him) and certainly feels in line with the moral fables he was beloved for at the time. Since it doesn't have any fantastical creatures or epic battle scenes, this one didn't travel much outside of Russia at the time despite being very popular at home; instead it's built up a following through home video and scarce repertory appearances, earning a reputation as a dramatic jewel in one of the country's greatest filmographies.

Arriving home from a long period at sea to the port town of Caperna, Longren (Pereverzev) learns that his wife Mary has died after a difficult childbirth and unexpected subsequent poverty leaving behind a baby daughter, Assol. Longren blames her death on the innkeeper who turned down her offer to pawn a ring and sent her to die in the cold, wet outdoors, and he refuses to help the man who nearly dies in the ocean. That failure to act dooms him and Assol to be shunned by their neighbors, which gets even worse a few years later when Assol (eventually played by The Amphibian Man's Vertinskaya) is told a prophecy by a mystical old man, Egl (Volkov), that one day her life will be forever changed by a prince who comes for her in a ship with scarlet sails. Meanwhile young Arthur Gray (played as an adult by War and Peace's Lanovoy) is another dreamer who's far more interested in becoming a sailor than inheriting his family's wealth and pursuing higher education. Disgusted by his count father's abusive treatment of the staff, Arthur disowns himself and heads to see where his voyages eventually lead him to a fateful sighting of Assol...

An usual tale devoid of a major overt villain, Scarlet Sails keeps its two main characters separated for most of the running time with their noble natures assuring viewers that there will be an intersection of some kind eventually. It's a formula stretching back to numerous work of classic literature through modern rom-coms like Amélie, but the execution here makes it completely unique with gorgeous landscape photography and sincere performances by the two leads (both understandably in demand a lot after this) carrying the story to its satisfying and visually dazzling conclusion.

Scarlet Sails was extremely difficult to see in an English-friendly presentation until the 2003 DVD from Ruscico, whose Dolby Digital audio options included Russian mono and 5.1, English 5.1, and French 5.1, with Russian, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Swedish, Chinese, or Arabic subtitles. Extras include subtitled interviews with Vassily Lanovoy (9m42s) and Oleg Anofriev (16m18s) along with fourteen talent filmographies, a 1m30s photo gallery, and an Alexander Grin bio. The 1.33:1 transfer looked okay at the time, albeit too bright and interlaced. A subsequent DVD in Germany was widescreen but dubbed in German only.

In 2026, Deaf Crocodile added this film to its essential roster of Ptushko Blu-ray special editions featuring a new Mosfilm restoration looking a lot better here than the compressed version they also added to their YouTube channel. The dusky, dreamlike look here seems to be appropriate to the source material, but the big revelation here is that Ptushko actually shot this film twice in completely different versions. The Sovscope one seen here features entirely unique footage compared to the 1.33:1 DVD edition; framing, line delivery, physical performances, and just about everything else don't overlap at all. Just look below for a few examples of how different the same moment is between the two. The DTS-HD MA Russian 2.0 mono audio sounds pristine and features optional English subtitles, while Rich Johnson provides a new audio commentary delineating how this fits in with Ptushko's cinema, the narrative choices reflected in his shots, and the cultural aspects built into what he reads as a hopeful origin story of Russia. Then the visual essay "Scarlet Sails: Man-Made Miracles and Godless Fairy Tales" (10m7s) by Celeste de la Cabra explores how Assol's outsider status and Arthur's rejection of his social class as children set in motion a study in the power of determination and self-fulfilling dreams. Finally a new video conversation between Stephen R. Bissette and Tim Lucas (59m11s) dives into their first experiences with Ptushko's work, this film's function as a gateway to his work, the role of the fantastical elements (or lack thereof), and a particularly interesting comparison to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Also included are bonus previews for Ilya Muromets, Sampo, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and Ruslan and Ludmila, while the limited edition option comes with a 48-page booklet with essays by Peter Rollberg and Walter Chaw about the film's unusual place in the Ptushko pantheon, the reverence for the source novel, and the folkloric aspects that are still open to interpretation.

Deaf Crocodile (Blu-ray)

Ruscico (DVD)

Reviewed on October 6, 2026