House in the Snow-Drifts
About House in the Snow-Drifts
In the winter of 1919, Petrograd is under siege by Nikolai Yudenich's army, and a snowed-in apartment house is freezing. An unemployed musician and his sick wife live between a speculator upstairs and the children of a Red Army soldier in the basement. To feed his wife and keep her warm, he steals the speculator's firewood and the children's parrot, which he cooks and serves as chicken. Feathers and leftover wood give him away. He thinks of suicide, then is asked to play piano for Red Army soldiers resting from the front. Their response convinces him that his music still has a use.
Cast & crew
More about House in the Snow-Drifts
Fridrikh Ermler directed. Boris Leonidov wrote the screenplay from Yevgeny Zamyatin's story "The Cave." The Russian title is Dom v sugrobakh.
Themes
Background
The story is set during the 1919 defense of Petrograd, when the city was short of fuel and food.
Notes
- Fyodor Nikitin leads the cast as the musician. Valeri Solovtsov plays the profiteer neighbor.
- The catalog file on Wikimedia Commons is dated 1927, while the Soviet release recorded on Wikipedia is March 23, 1928.
Scenes
- The musician cooks the children's parrot and passes it off as chicken, then feathers give him away.
- He sits down at the piano for Red Army soldiers on leave from the front.
Influenced by
- The Cave (story by Yevgeny Zamyatin)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1927 Дом в сугробах.webm)
