Behind the Screen 1917
Famous Russian screen actors play themselves in this drama about the lives of actors. Thirteen minutes of the film survive.
Famous Russian screen actors play themselves in this drama about the lives of actors. Thirteen minutes of the film survive.
The story of Prince Stepán Kasátsky discovering his fiancée was the mistress of the Czar, so he then becomes a monk.
Pastor Talnoх furiously urges the flock to fight temptations, but he himself becomes a victim of temptation. In his house appears Satan, pushing the hero to theft and spiritual fall.
While hosting a game of cards one night, Narumov tells his friends a story about his grandmother, a Countess. As a young woman, she had once incurred an enormous gambling debt, which she was able to erase by learning a secret that guaranteed that she could win by playing her cards in a certain order. One of Narumov's friends, German, has never gambled, but he is intrigued by the story about the Countess and her secret. He soon becomes obsessed with learning this secret from her, and he starts by courting her young ward Lizaveta, hoping to use her to gain access to the Countess.
A romance in the upper-classes develops as the Bolshevik revolution is at hand.
Millionaire Gornostayev and ballet dancer in Ilona are always arguing about what is more important - youth and beauty or wealth. Ilona thought that youth and beauty are more important, but Gornostayew disagreed with her. He intended to prove Ilona that she in wrong. Gornostayew signed a contract with young worker Alexey. They moved abroad. Year later. Alexey changed into a real aristocrat and returned to Russia. Gornostayew introduced Alexey to Ilona and she falls in love with him.
Ivan Savonsky, popular society artist, meets Olga Kartoff, a young woman high in social circles, and while she is instantly attracted by him, he sees in her only the perfect model for his picture, "The Dagger Woman." Studying her, and by carefully playing on her emotions he gains her confidence, and afterward she consents to pose for him. The picture completed, she is grieved and then angered to discover that Ivan's interest rests solely in it, and how it will fare at the exhibition. She pleads with him in vain. The picture is pronounced a masterpiece, and Ivan is in his triumph as he returns to his studio. Here Olga has secreted herself. Humiliated by the reports circulated regarding herself and the artist, and unable longer to bear his disinterest she plunges a dagger to his heart and kills him.
A great stage performer falls ill and loses her voice and beauty, and she and her admirer's lives crumble because of it.
After the death of Count Chambery his wife and daughter were left without means of subsistence. Seeing no other way out, a young woman settles maid in the house of Baroness Angers.
Prosecutor Olsen's lover, the singer-songwriter Betsy, leaves him for a new passion. And he, speaking in court as a prosecutor, remains deaf to the dictates of feelings, a ruthless servant of the harsh Law. Some time later, Betsy kills her new lover in a fit of jealousy; Olsen, who retained his feelings, nevertheless becomes her accuser at the trial. He seeks the condemnation of Betsy, but comes to the realization that he lived unrighteously, allowing himself to be judged, becoming a servant of Themis. Exit in the classic tradition of the great mute: Olsen commits suicide.
A perverted town mayor who murders a young girl and, overcome by guilt, commits suicide. Based on the short story La petite Roque by Guy de Maupassant.
The plot is built on the external similarity of the characters - a millionaire and an apache killer.