The Sandpit Generals

The Sandpit Generals (also released as The Defiant and The Wild Pack) is a 1971 drama film directed by Hall Bartlett. Its plot is based on the novel Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado. Melodious soundtracks were written by Dorival Caymmi. The film was not popular in the United States due to its socialist context and was banned by Brazil's military regime for the same reason, but became an iconic film in the Soviet Union, where it took part in the 7th Moscow International Film Festival and, although did not win any prize, in a few years was widely distributed in movie theaters and was proclaimed "the best foreign film" by Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in 1974. In the socialist country, the movie became so well-known that it inspired theater plays, books, special reports on post-Soviet criminal youth, etc.