Abram Room, Bed and Sofa, 1927

Третья Мещанская (Bed and Sofa), 1927
film poster
(image source: movpins)
no copyright infringement intended

We'd expect a Soviet movie to be framed in some Soviet canons. Well, with many Soviet movies of the twenties, simply it's not the case. Look for instance at this Третья Мещанская (Bed and Sofa), created by Abram Room in 1927. It's the story of a ménage à trois à la russe, started (and keeping on) due to the huge housing problems of those years, and evolving into something that could suggest kind of a same-sex resolution.

It's Moscow of the twenties, housing problems are huge, it's far from the period of continuous development of huge ugly projects with myriads of small anonymous apartments. Right now it's just that, an old city with an ever growing number of people coming in, and it's impossible to find a dwelling for everyone. It comes that anyone finds a solution on its own, sharing bed and sofa and even more.

Some say that this movie alludes to the tempestuous story between Majakovsky and Lilya Brik. I don't know whether it's the case. Simply the Soviet mentalities of the twenties were unexpectedly free when it was coming to the gender issues, putting men and women on an equal footing on anything related to family, attitude toward sex, conjugal fidelity and ejusdem farinae. All this would radically change a few years later, but by then it was just the decade of the twenties. Anyway a wonderful comedy, full of tempo, and full of warmth, of sympathy for each hero, the wife and the two men.

Третья Мещанская (Bed and Sofa), 1927
(video by Rvision)

A bit about the actors. Let's mention firstly Lyudmila Semyonova, playing with wonderful subtlety in the role of the wife. I saw her also in a much later movie, from 1961, The Steamroller and the Violin, the first oeuvre of Tarkovsky. Nikolai Batalov was in the role of the husband. He was an interesting actor, unfortunately he died too young and played only in ten movies throughout his life. I already watched three of them (and maybe I will come here with the fourth). His namesake, Aleksey Batalov (no relation between the two) would make a much, much longer career. And Vladimir Fogel in the role of husband's friend and competitor, he was one of the leading actors of his generation (the best, as Pudovkin would state later). He died tragically in 1929, being only 27 years old. Despite his brief life he played in fourteen movies.

Lyudmila Semyonova
(image from Bed and Sofa)
source: listal
no copyright infringement intended

(Abram Room)

(Majakovsky)

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West (1924)

(Wikipedia)
no copyright infringement intended

Mr. West (played as a Harold Lloyd type with enormous round glasses), is a YMCA president who is planning a trip to the newly founded Soviet Union to spread the idea of the YMCA. His wife is worried that Russia is full of savage Bolsheviks who wear primitive rags and fur for clothing, as depicted in American magazines. He takes along his cowboy friend Jeddie (played by Boris Barnet) for protection and as a companion. However, on arriving in the USSR his briefcase is stolen, he gets separated from Jeddie and he falls into the hands of a group of thieves, including a run-down Countess (played by Aleksandra Khokhlova, who was, or would become sometime later, the wife of director Lev Kuleshov), who masquerade as counter-revolutionaries. The thieves play on West's fears and engineer his abduction by crooks dressed up as caricature Bolshevik barbarians. The thieves then rescue West from the clutches of these fictional Bolsheviks, extorting thousands of dollars from him along the way. In the end, it is the real Bolshevik police who rescue West, rather than his friend Jeddie (who meanwhile has hooked up with an American girl living in Moscow). West then takes a sightseeing tour of Moscow, where he sees that the Soviet government did not destroy all cultural landmarks, such as Moscow University and the Bolshoi Theater, as the thieves suggested. The film culminates in Mr.West watching a military parade with the policeman and concluding that the American view of the Soviet Union is wrong. He telegraphs his wife instructing her to hang a portrait of Lenin (no more, no less) in his study.

(Wikipedia)

American ignorance based on stereotypes was in 1924 as big as today. As well as Soviet propaganda. Only this is a very good film, in many respects. Lev Kuleshov at his best. Think at the famous Kuleshov Effect and all that staff, you'll find it in this movie. By the way, Kuleshov was known by his friends as openly pro-American and quietly anti-Soviet (not that it would matter; anyway he passed through the great purges of Stalin by keeping low-key). One of the roles (the chief of crocks) was played by Vsevolod Pudovkin (who also co-signed the scenario). Among the rest of the cast, Vladimir Fogel, as a young cocky man. A last hint: in the final scene of military parade, you will see for only one instant the figure of Trotsky (as the film was made in 1924, Stalin was not yet in full control).

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924
(video by SAGIXTV)

(Lev Kuleshov)

(Vsevolod Pudovkin)

A Book and a Movie: The Unexpected (1906) and By the Law (1926)

McClure's Magazine, August 1906
where The Unexpected was originally published
(Chanticleer Books)
no copyright infringement intended

There are those that make toward survival, the fit individuals who escape from the rule of the obvious and the expected and adjust their lives to no matter what strange grooves they may stray into, or into which they may be forced.

The Unexpected was firstly published in 1906, in the August issue of McClure's Magazine. One year later Jack London included it in his collection Love of Life and Other Stories.

The story is based on a real case reported by San Francisco Examiner in October 1900 (double murder and subsequent revenge on the murderer by a married couple). Jack London made from it some unforgettable pages of great literature.

A small group of gold diggers are on the borders of Yukon and get trapped by the bad season. No ship is coming till next spring to take them back to the city. They are five and among them there is a married couple. Suddenly one of the diggers kills two of his comrades and is about to kill also the husband and wife, who succeed to immobilize the murderer. The husband wants to kill him on the spot, but the wife disagrees: justice must be done strictly according to the law, otherwise it would be just another murder. It comes that the two have to guard the killer for several months, risking their lives, till the ship arrives. What follows is an intense psychological drama, told by Jack London in his usual straightforward manner, keeping it down to the fact though the facts are minimal: only a continuous flow of inner thoughts. Thinking about the situation: how to keep control while keeping to the law. Thinking about your own thoughts: how to keep control while your mind is spiraling dangerously. Facts of mind told by Jack London strictly down to the fact.

You can read the story here:

http://www.online-literature.com/london/105/

In 1926 film director Lev Kuleshov associated with cinematographer: Konstantin Kuznetsov made a movie based on the story of London: the silent По закону (By the Law). It is a great work of art in its own right, and I would dare to say, a timeless gem. London was keeping a distance to the subject, giving a cool account. In the movie, the camera and the montage scissors become part of the play: the hut where husband and wife are guarding the murderer becomes a claustrophobic universe surrounded by the unleashed universe of the big river outside, at times frozen, at times flooding everywhere, always menacing, always ready to destroy everything around. At any moment the two risk to be murdered by their prisoner, their tiny space risk to be swallowed by the caprices of nature, their inner thoughts risk to be swallowed by madness. Space, guardians, thoughts, like tiny elements at the mercy of much bigger unknowns: an ultimate cinematic expression of the unexpected.


And Vladimir Fogel in probably his best role.

(video by Классика советского кино (официальный канал))

(Jack London)

(Lev Kuleshov)