| Cross and Mauser | |
| Director: | Vladimir Gardin |
| Studio: | Goskino |
| Country: | Soviet Union |
| Language: | Silent Russian intertitles |
Cross and Mauser (ru|Крест и Маузер|Krest i mauzer) is a 1925 Soviet silent adventure film directed by Vladimir Gardin.[1]
The film set in early Soviet Russia, depicts a priest secretly working for foreign intelligence who is forced to confront his dark past and atone for his sins, leading to a tragic betrayal and death.
The film takes place during the early years of Soviet rule in a small town in western Russia. Jeronim, the priest of the local church, is secretly working for foreign intelligence, hiding a group of spies led by Shura. One day, Jeronim unexpectedly encounters his old acquaintance, Mariyka, and tries to manipulate her into gathering information from the town's police chief, Galinski. Jeronim is aware of Mariyka’s past relationship with Galinski, having accidentally learned of it when he attempted to extract information from the arrested revolutionary Galinski before the Revolution, under the guise of a confession.
However, Mariyka also knows something significant: during the pre-revolutionary years, in a monastery orphanage, a child was born to the orphan Yulka. The orphanage supervisor, Pavlikha, killed the child and disposed of the body in the Jewish quarter. The Black Hundred used the rumor that the child was killed for ritualistic purposes by Jews to incite a pogrom. Yulka, dying, told her sister Mariyka that the father of the child was none other than Jeronim, the priest, who had ordered the child's death and used the pogrom to further his own career. Rather than agreeing to betray Galinski, Mariyka offers Jeronim a choice: to publicly atone for the death of the child.
During a sermon, Jeronim publicly confesses his sins and renounces his priestly vows. Following Shura’s orders, the spy group douses Jeronim with kerosene and burns him alive. As Jeronim attempts to flee the church, which is surrounded by police, Shura, a former vicar of the monastery and now a spy, is fatally wounded but dies clutching a cross and a Mauser pistol.