Not long after the Russian Revolution, when Soviet communism had a bright, exciting future, young men were recruited into Komsomol, a youth organization that, among other things, aided local police departments in criminal investigations. This is the backdrop for Vladimir Gerasimov’s Ispytatelnyy srok (US: Probation), a beautifully shot, full-color, police procedural noir set in 1923. New Komsomol recruits Sasha Egorov (Oleg Tabakov) and Sergei Seytsev (Vyacheslav Nevinny) have been assigned to work with the newly formed Soviet Union Criminal Investigation Department under the tutelage of experienced detective Jour (Oleg Efremov), who involves them in a case that appears to be a standard suicide at first glance. Once it’s discovered that the body had ingested poison, the novice sleuths, one logical and the other sensitive, sink their teeth into the case and spread out in multiple dangerous directions. Gerasimov populates the film with countless painterly compositions, often using gels to add a colorful glow to the most intense interior scenes, while exterior shots regularly show the hubbub of the proletariat in town squares or administrative buildings, the fruits of the revolution not yet fully ripened.