The Stray Bullet, Lithuanian SSR Film

This Lithuanian movie poster for the Georgian Soviet film The Stray Bullet turns a Civil War drama into a remarkably bold piece of late Soviet graphic design. Produced by Gruziya-film, the film follows Vasili Kikvidze, a young Red Army commander whose life became intertwined with the violent struggles of the Russian Civil War. Rather than relying on portraits of the film’s stars or a literal scene from the story, the designer reduces the action to three enormous blue-gray silhouettes advancing through clouds of fiery orange. Rifles cut diagonally across the composition while the figures seem to emerge directly from the smoke, giving the poster the immediacy of a revolutionary image rather than a conventional movie advertisement. The stark palette and simplified forms draw on the legacy of Constructivism while feeling distinctly modern for the period. The poster also tells a larger story about how cinema traveled across the Soviet Union. The Stray Bullet was a Georgian production, yet this version was created for audiences in Soviet Lithuania, with Lithuanian and Russian text appearing together. Films regularly crossed the borders of the USSR’s fifteen republics, with regional designers creating their own promotional graphics for local theatrical distribution. That combination makes this piece especially interesting: a Lithuanian-designed poster advertising a Georgian film about a Red Army commander, all within the larger Soviet cultural system. Its dramatic silhouettes and explosive color give it an impact that extends well beyond the film itself, while its multilingual typography preserves a fascinating record of the interconnected cinema culture of the late USSR. *Note poster is on very thin stock, characteristic of soviet commercial production of the era. Size: 23.75" x 16.75" Condition: Very Good, Age-appropriate wear, fading and toning. Light diaganol crease in upper left corner. Light creasing in lower right margin. Minute lower border tears. Light horizontal center fold. Small abrasion in leg of officer. Please use the photo zoom feature to get a better understanding of overall condition. *Additional photos available upon request.