Lyubov Orlova
Birth : 1902-02-11, Zvenigorod, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire
Death : 1975-01-26
History
Lyubov Orlova is a Soviet actress, singer, dancer and People's Artist of the USSR. Her charismatic presence in Soviet popular classics, kept a massive audience fascinated and bedazzled throughout the 1930s and 40s.
Appearing in a wide variety of films, Orlova is most remembered for her roles in the famous musicals directed at the height of Stalinism by her husband, Grigoriy Aleksandrov (1903-1984). In these films, a singing and dancing Orlova typically represents a girl of humble origins who attains high ranking in society through a combination of talent, hard work, assertiveness, progressive ideals and faith in a bright future.
(archive footage)
Funny and entertaining story about the history of the film "Funny guys"by G. Alexandrov.
archival footage
A documentary on the life of the famous actress, deceased wife of the director Grigoriy Aleksandrov.
"Lyre"
Soviet intelligence spouses — Lyudmila ("Lyre") and Fyodor ("Starling") Grekov at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War are tasked with settling in Germany. Personnel intelligence officers with vast experience are successfully introduced into German society and begin to work actively. At the end of the war, during the bombing of Berlin, fate separates them, but then they will meet in the new Germany and continue their work.
Varvara Komarova
The end of the 1950s. The Chinese passenger plane, following the Beijing-Moscow flight, enters a thunderstorm and makes an emergency landing in the Baikal region. In addition to the Soviet citizen Varvara Komarova, all other passengers are foreigners. Using a stop, they explore new cities and get acquainted with the life, work and rest of Soviet people.
Ludmilla Ivanovna Glinka
The young composer Mikhail Glinka performs his new work at a soiree at earl Vielgorsky's house. However, the public is accustomed to Western music, and reacts coldly to the creation of the composer. This makes him very sad, but soon he decides to go learn the art of music in Italy. After returning from Italy, he is full of desire to write national Russian opera. Vasily Zhukovsky proposes a subject: a feat of Ivan Susanin. Tsar Nicholas I change the name of the opera to A Life for the Tsar and assigns a librettist - Baron Rosen. Acquaintance with the future co-author shocked Glinka: Rosen speaks Russian with a noticeable German accent. The premiere was successful, but Glinka was still not entirely happy with the libretto: "False words were written by Rosen". When Nicholas I learned that Ruslan and Lyudmila was written on Pushkin's subject, he sees it as sedition. The bitter experience of the composer brighten his supporters.
Platonova
Saint Petersburg, 1858. A group of composers known as The Five meet at Balakirev's. Young Modest Mussorgsky, both a civil servant and a musician, has become a fixture there. He tells about the first opera he plans to compose. Then he goes to the country where he discovers the lowly conditions of the peasants and the bloody conflicts with the rich land owners. He works on Gogol's 'The Marriage', trying to render into music the natural accents of the play's naturalistic dialogue. But his efforts do not pan out. On the other hand, he starts writing his opera on the story of Boris Godunov. The Marinsky Theatre refuses to stage the work. The Five, and Mussorgsky among them, are libeled and the group starts disintegrating. When 'Boris Godunov' is finally performed in 1874, it is a popular success.
Janet Sherwood, journalist
Soviet and American soldiers are meeting on the shores of the Elbe river in Germany in 1945.
Prof. Irina Petrovna Nikitina / Vera Giorgievna Shatrova
A drab woman scientist, working on machine to harness solar energy, and a pert concert singer look-alike being courted to play her in a movie swap identities and find personal growth, professional success, love, and happiness.
Katya
The film is about the Soviet People's patriotism and friendship.
Tatyana Ivanovna "Tanya" Morozova
Tanya Morozova, an illiterate but industrious textile factory worker, finds happiness through her education and the Stakhanovite movement. She becomes a shock labourer and ascends through the Party ranks, ultimately being elected as a member of the Supreme Soviet.
Kseniya Lebedeva
Engineer-designer of the Moscow aviation plant Cochin took the secret blueprints home. He didn't know that foreign intelligence had long been hunting for these blueprints...
Strelka Petrova
Widely claimed to be Joseph Stalin's favorite movie, this classic musical comedy is a must-see. The action takes place on a steamboat on the iconic Volga River, as two groups of performers travel to Moscow to perform in the Moscow Musical Olympiad.
Marion Dixon
An American circus performer finds herself the victim of racism after it is revealed that she's the mother of a mixed-race child. In the midst of the public scandal, she finds happiness, love, and refuge in the USSR.
Анюта, домашняя работница (Anyuta - the Housemaid)
Merry Fellows was the first Soviet musical comedy. Set in Odessa and Moscow in the 1930s. Shepherd Kostya Potekhin (Utyosov) is mistaken for an international concert star. He falls in love with Anyuta (Orlova) and plays the "star" for her. In a cascade of comic musical numbers he becomes the leader of a Jazz-Band and gives a hilarious show at the Odessa Music Hall. Now he is destined to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
A loose Communist adaptation of a Dostoyevsky novel.