The genre of the film is usually designated as propaganda, but in fact “The Return of Nathan Baker” is one of the first examples of production cinema, and, due to the pioneering nature of the solution of the topic, with some originality in terms of plot decisions.
Baker is a re-emigrant who managed to work on construction sites in New York and returns to the USSR with a fair share of professional arrogance. But here he finds the emerging system of collective labor training, which his individualistic approach does not take root. However, time puts everything in its place. It is interesting that the antithesis of retrograde and advanced labor obsessive to the production genre here is associated with the opposition of industrially developed American production (indication of the foreign period of the hero’s life is necessary in this sense) and just parting with the rural way (in the film this is a representation on the example of a Jewish town with its ethnographic flavor), located at the very beginning of the industrialization of the Soviet system. This decision is quite original, it should demonstrate that any professionalism based on talent outside of their connection with the team fails in the long run. This is almost allegorically deduced in the scene of a competition-fight of two styling systems right in the circus arena, where "our and the correct system" in the end defeats all the tricks of "their" method.
The film is also curious by the rare appearance on the screen of Mikhoels, who starred in only four films, as well as “Dochapaevsky”, if I may say so, Butochkin, who plays a small and uninteresting role here. In general, “Return...” emphasizes the tendency to turn to tendentious aesthetics, which will gradually grow in Soviet cinema in the 30s.