A Great Life
About A Great Life
Three months after the party organizer Khadarov arrives, a Donbas mining village is working again. The young engineer Petukhov, pushed by the veterans Kozodoev and Bugorkov, works out a new way to cut coal. The mine-committee chairman Usynin fights it, afraid a failure will break morale, and Petukhov nearly leaves. Khadarov, Kozodoev, and Bugorkov keep him. When the chief engineer Ivanov falls ill, Khadarov gives Petukhov the job, and the new method goes in.
Cast & crew
More about A Great Life
Leonid Lukov directed it at the Kiev studio in 1939. Nikita Bogoslovsky wrote the music. It runs 94 minutes. Mark Bernes plays Petukhov. Ivan Novoseltsev plays Khadarov. Ivan Pelttser plays Kozodoev. Stepan Kayukov plays Usynin. Boris Andreyev plays Khariton Balun.
Themes
Background
The Donbas was the Soviet coal region the studios were filming in the late 1930s. This picture sets a new extraction method against a committee that would rather keep the old pace.
Making
Lukov shot the argument over the new coal face inside the committee and the pit, with Bernes as the engineer and Kayukov as the man blocking him.
Music
Nikita Bogoslovsky composed the score.
Notes
- The Russian title is Большая жизнь (Bolshaya zhizn).
- Vera Shershnyova plays Sonya Osipova. Yuri Lavrov plays Kuzmin. Pyotr Aleynikov plays Vanya Kurskiy.
- Lavrenti Masokha plays Makar Lyagotin.
- Usynin's objection is that a failed experiment will hurt the mine's morale.
- Petukhov gets the chief engineer's duties only because Ivanov is ill.
Scenes
- Usynin tells Petukhov the new method is too risky for morale.
- Khadarov puts Petukhov in the sick chief engineer's place.
- The new cut goes into the mine.
