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Unlike Warren Beatty's Reds, this film by director Sergei Bondarchuk does not create much human dimension to the character of John Reed (1887-1920), the well-known leftist journalist who first gained fame reporting on the Mexican Revolution and eventually wrote 10 Days that Shook the World on the 1917 Russian Revolution. His stormy relationship with fellow journalist Louise Bryant does not feature here either (though she appears in the film). The main attraction of this movie is the climactic storming of the Winter Palace. Reed was indicted for sedition in the U.S. and moved to Russia where he died at the age of 33 of typhus. He is one of two Americans buried in the Kremlin.