Preface to the catalogue

Based on a short story of the same title by Anton Chekhov.

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  The film was awarded the “Grand Prix Eurovision” of the 1st International Television Film Festival in Cannes, France (1961) and the Premium for the Best Short Film at the V International Film Festival in San Francisco, USA (1961).
  

Based on “In His Native City”, a story by Victor Nekrasov.

The ex-scout Captain Nikolai Mityasov returns to his native city which has been destroyed by the fascists. His heavy wound is keeping him from his favorite sports. Nikolai's confusion and embarrassment have been further enhanced by his wife's unfaithfulness. The new friends helped the man back from the front enroll in the Engineering and Construction Institute and take an active part in the peaceful working life.

473 DEN PERVUY (DAY ONE)

1958, 91 min., b/w

Drama

Director: Friedrich Ermler, screenplay: Konstantin Isayev, camera: Anatoly Nazarov, production designer: Yevgeny Yeney, misic: Oleg Kravaychuk, sound: Alexander Becker

Cast: Edward Bredun, Oksana Petrenko, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Konstantin Skorobogatov, Alexander Larikov, Yuri Tolubeyev

The Petrograd worker Nikolai Timofeyev is always in the thick of events. We see him in the Smolny, which is housing the headquarters of the Revolution; in the Peter and Paul Fortress, obtaining arms for the workers; in the Winter Palace, delivering the ultimatum to the ministers of the Provisional Government. Always at his side is his wife Katya, an expectant mother.

At the very time when Nikolai is storming the Winter Palace with the armed workers, on the marble staircase of the Headquarters in the Palace Square a son is born to Katya.

Day one of the Soviet Republic dawns, being also the first day in the life of Nikolai Timofeyev's son.

The driver Vasya, in hospital with bad bone fractures, doesn't believe in getting well. He gloom is further enhanced by the building across the street that is falling apart.

But one day workers arrive to tear down the ruins and begin new construction. Chatting to the builders and watching them at work, Vasya gradually comes alive, further helped by the jokes of the young stonemason Tasya.

Time passes. Vasya gets well, the building is ready, the workers have left, but Vasya's friendship with Tasya perseveres.

The screenplay became the basis for the novel “The Cause You Serve” by Yuri Herman.

The main character, Vladimir Ustimenko, is a doctor. Life has not been kind to him. His father perished in Spain in the 1930-s. Invariably, no matter where his destiny took him, Vladimir stuck to the ideals and principles he developed back in his youth: as a student of the medical institute, in the capacity of army surgeon during the war, and in the post-war years when he became Head Physician in charge of a municipal hospital. Justice and selflessness have always been parts of Ustimenko's approach both to the cause he serves and the people he meets at different stages of his life.

This includes his girlfriend Varya, their friendship going back to well before the war and supporting both of them throughout their long lives.

A screen version of the opera of the same title by Pyotr Chaikovsky based on the versed novel by Alexander Pushkin; musical manager and conductor: Boris Khaykin.

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  The film was awarded the Diploma of the XIII International Film Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland (1959).
  

Based on a short story of the same title by O'Henry.

Loosely based on a novel of the same title by Arkady Perventsev.

The world was into the year 1918. Word of the brigade led by the brave and reckless Kochubey was all over the Kuban. Many a time did he drive the White troops out of villages with his unexpected maneuvers. Many a time his attack, delivered out of the blue, defeated the armed enemy units. But by and by, the fearless Kochubey came to understand that it takes also military discipline and mastery of military science to achieve a complete victory...

479 MISTER IKS (MISTER X)

1958, 95 min., color

Musical

Director: Yuzef Khmelnitsky, screenplay: Nora Rubunstein, Yuzef Khmelnitsky, camera: Vladimir Burykin, production designers: Abram Veksler, Yevgeny Yeney, sound: Rostislav Lapinsky

Cast: Georg Ots, Marina Yurasova, Anatoly Korolkevich, Zoya Vinogradova, Nikolai Kashirsky, Glikeria Bogdanova-Chesnokova, Grigory Yaron, Yephim Kopelyan

Based on “The Circus Princess”, a musical comedy by the Hungarian composer Imre Kalman.

The meetings on Moscow construction sites and in the faraway virgin lands, the regular stories and essays focused on specific problems help the young reporter Tanya Nikitina gain professional skill.

Tanya's essay about the people developing virgin lands is a success, but unexpectedly she finds out that in her haste she has slandered a famous woman working there. Striving to reinstate the truth, the reporter writes a book about the heroine.

481 NOCHNOY GOST (THE NIGHT GUEST)

1958, 58 min., b/w

Drama

Director: Vladimir Shredel, screenplay: Yuri Nagibin, camera: Vladimir Burykin, production designer: Abram Veksler, misic: Nadezhda Simonyan, sound: Arnold Shargorodsky

Cast: Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Alexandra Panova, Lyubov Sokolova, Valentina Pugacheva, Georgy Zhzhenov, Mikhail Gluzsky, Igor Yefimov

Based on a short story of the same title by Yuri Nagibin.

Late on a summer night, a new tenant, Pal Palych, appears in a cottage sitting on the shore of a beautiful lake where fishermen use to stay. Soon both the landlady and the other tenants get the feeling that behind the outward charm and the nice empty words is an indifferent and intensely self-loving person.

482 OTTSY I DETI (THE FATHERS AND THE CHILDREN)

1958, 103 min., color

Drama

Directors: Adolph Bergunker, Natalya Rashevskaya, screenplay: Alexander Vitov (Alexander Vitenzon), Natalya Rashevskaya, camera: Anatoly Nazarov, production designer: Igor Vuskovich, misic: Venedict Pushkov, sound: Boris Antonov

Cast: Victor Avdyushko, Nikolai Sergeyev, Yekaterina Alexandrovskaya, Edward Martsevich, Alexei Konsovsky, Bruno Freindlich, Alla Larionova, Izolda Izvitskaya

Based on a novel of the same title by Ivan Turgenev.

A screen version of a ballet performance to the music by Ludwig Minkus staged by the Leningrad Academic Small Opera Theatre; producer: Marius Petitpas, revival: Konstantin Boyarsky.

Based on “To School” and “Love”, short stories by Yuri Nagibin.

Sitting in a compartment of a train car, Yegor is reminiscing about his childhood and his friendship with the merriest and naughtiest of the village girls, Nastenka. Yegor left to get an education, while Nastenka became a charming young lady, gave up school and started work at the local Leisure Home.

The guests pronounced her to be heading towards a brilliant acting career, and Nastya forgot her childhood friend. In her turn, she was also forgotten by the departed guests from the capital, who promised to summon her to Moscow.

Coming home for his vacation, Yegor was at a loss for words needed to support the young girl.

At this time, on the train, Yegor feels that he is also responsible for Nastya's fate. Jumping off the moving train, Yegor returns to the village along the railway track.

Based on a short story of the same title by James Aldridge.

An excellent but elderly pilot Ben agrees to do some dangerous underwater filming for the TV. Accompanied by his twelve-year-old son Davy, he flies a light sports plane to Shark Bay. Davy sits on the shore for a long time. At last, a blood-streaked Ben emerges from the ocean. Painfully, the boy drags his heavy father to the plane...

486 PUCHINA (THE DEEP)

1958, 99 min., b/w

Drama

Written and directed by: Antonin Dawson, Yuri Muzykant, camera: Muzakir Shurukov, production designer: Victor Savostin, misic: Venedict Pushkov, sound: Anna Volokhova

Cast: Alexander Borisov, Natalya Rashevskaya, Adolph Shestakov, Vasily Merkuryev, Anna Lisyanskaya, Mikhail Yekaterininsky, Alexander Sokolov, Nina Mamayeva, Masha Yekaterininskaya

Based on a play of the same title by Alexander Ostrovsky.

On an early summer morning Head Office manager Pastukhov and his driver Savrasov set off on vacation by car. At their very first rest stop Savrasov had a severe attack of the gout. Wrapping his driver companion in his blazer, Pastukhov takes him to a hospital, where, due to the documents in the blazer pocket, he is taken for the Head Office manager. At the same time, struggling through recurrent inconvenience and awkwardness resulting from the activities of his employees, Pastukhov painfully reaches the District seat.

A screen version of a ballet to the music of Frederic Chopin staged by the Leningrad State Academic Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre.

A TV picture featuring the creative activity of the actor Nikolai Cherkasov.

The picture is about the courage of Soviet sappers, clearing mines from a big ammunition dump left behind by the fascists a the city block and discovered in the course of construction of an apartment building 15 years after the war.

The young steel founder Fyodor Shebalin has developed an ardent wish to implement a new method of mutual training in the best working skills in his factory. The management and the old workers are in no hurry to change the proven old ways. The impatient young people fail the trial melting. The engineer Yasnova is sure that the productivity of the furnaces can be increased without rebuilding them.

What will the factory management decide?

492 DOROGA UKHODIT VDAL (THE ROAD DISAPPEARS INTO THE DISTANCE)

1959, 63 min., b/w

Melodrama

Director: Anatoly Vekhotko, screenplay: Alexei Leontyev, camera: Oleg Kukhovarenko, production designer: Ivan Ivanov, misic: Dmitry Tolstoy, sound: Anna Volokhova

Cast: Julia Tsoglin, Yuri Solovyev, Mikhail Troyanovsky, G. Osipenko, E. Popov

Graduating from the medical institute, Lena Shatrova was really piqued to wind up in a shabby district hospital. Not before saving a boy sick in a distant village she had difficulties reaching did she come to understand the need for medical care experienced by people independent of where they live.

Based on a play of the same title by Maxim Gorky staged by the Leningrad Gorky Drama Theatre; producer: Natalya Rashevskaya.

Based on a short story of the same title by Mikhail Sholokhov.

The mare belonging to Trofim, who is part of a Red Army squadron, has a colt. In a battle occurring shortly the colt lost his mother and didn't catch up with the Read Army unit until the next day, and then with the White Kazakhs. Hearing his mother's call from across the river, the colt rushes into the water, but is no match for the swift current. Trofim hurries to his rescue. When the Red Army soldier and the colt scramble on shore, a bullet fired by an officer of the Whites kills Trofim.

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  The film was awarded the Premium of the YII International Film Festival in Oberhausen, the German Federal Republic (1961).
  

The picture deals with literary and artistic research methods. In the TV picture the prominent researcher and scientist Irakly Andronikov tells about the research he did in the Caucasus trying to identify locations bearing ties to Lermontov and the name of the woman who inspired the numerous poems dedicated by Lermontov to N.F.I.

Based on a short story of the same title by Anton Chekhov.

Mergen returns to his native Tuva. He is an engineer fresh from the institute, set on making his native land even more beautiful. Soon enough, he gets a chance to apply himself. A flood has destroyed an old bridge across a turbulent river, and Maxim begins the construction of a new and solid modern bridge.

All vocations have champions in ardent love with them. One such was Ivan Andreievich Bazanov, Director of the Museum of Local Lore. Setting out in search of a hidden treasure, he lured along the people he chanced to meet. Nadya, the daughter of a railway guard, Nina Platonovna, the botanist who missed her bus, the students of the conservatoire with nowhere to spend the night, and Gulyayev, Bazanov's neighbor — all of them succumb to the lore researcher's bountiful and vivid imagination and join in his search for the country's riches. True friendship and true love proved to be their most valuable finds.