Natasha and her grandfather live in a cottage near Moscow, making hats for Madame Irène. Madame and her husband have told the housing committee that Natasha rents a room from them; this fiddle gives Madame’s lazy husband a room for lounging. The local railroad clerk, Fogelev, loves Natasha but she takes a shine to Ilya, a clumsy student who sleeps in the train station. To help Ilya, Natasha marries him and takes him to Madame’s to live in the room the house committee thinks is hers. Meanwhile, Madame’s husband pays Natasha with a lottery ticket he thinks is a loser, and when it comes up big, just as Ilya and Natasha are falling in love, everything gets complicated. –IMDb
Long overlooked in the West, Boris Barnet, whose career began in the silent era and lasted until the 1960s, was one of the most popular, prolific, and admired filmmakers of Soviet cinema. His untypical surname belonged to his English grandfather who had opened a printing business in Moscow. He studied painting at the Moscow School of Art before leaving in 1919 to serve as a medic in the Red Army. After the civil war he actually worked as both a physical trainer and boxer, and this physicality drew the attention of director Lev Kuleshov who cast him in his first film. Joining Kuleshov’s seminal film workshop, he took on various roles before and behind the camera, and finally directed his first film – a serial called Miss Mend – on which he co-directed with Thedore Osip. Toward the end of the silent era, he directed two wonderful comedies about peasant girls moving to the big city, Girl With the Hatbox and The House on Trubnaya Square. Though he directed several overtly political dramas… read more
