Silent Witnesses
About Silent Witnesses
Variusha, a maid, is not allowed to visit her children in the country, so Nastya, the porter’s granddaughter, takes her place in the Kostritsyn house. Pavel, the son, flirts with her and then seduces her. His fiancée Ellen is carrying on with Baron von Rehren. Nastya tries to get the baron out and will not take money to keep quiet. Pavel will not risk the marriage already arranged. Ellen comes back into favor and he treats Nastya as a maid again. She puts up with the new mistress until Ellen’s affair; she demands the lover leave. Ellen cries and talks of going abroad. Nastya sees the family off at the station and breaks down. Old Mrs. Kostritsyn tells her not to let herself go and to mind her work.
Cast & crew
More about Silent Witnesses
Yevgeni Bauer directed Aleksandr Voznesensky’s script for Aleksandr Khanzhonkov. Boris Zavelev photographed it. The Russian release was 29 April 1914. A surviving timing is 1 hour 4 minutes 28 seconds; published lengths also say 65 minutes.
Themes
Background
Khanzhonkov released it on 29 April 1914, a household story of masters and servants in the last months before Russia entered the war.
Making
Bauer keeps the servants in the rooms where the affair is obvious and unpaid. Nastya’s refusal of the hush money is the turn; the station scene is the one the Russian synopsis bothers to finish.
Look
Boris Zavelev shot the Kostritsyn interiors, the servants’ view of Ellen’s visitor, and the platform where Nastya is told to stop crying.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print running about 64 minutes survives.
Notes
- Dora Chitorina plays Nastya. Aleksandr Chargonin is Pavel Kostritsyn. Elsa Krüger is Ellen, also billed as Yelena. Aleksandr Kheruvimov is the porter.
- Andrey Gromov and Viktor Petipa are in the cast; the lists consulted do not assign their parts.
- The English Wikipedia plot stops when Pavel drops Nastya. The Russian plot continues to the railway goodbye and Mrs. Kostritsyn’s rebuke.
- The Russian title is Немые свидетели.
Scenes
- Nastya takes Variusha’s place so the other maid can see her children.
- She refuses money meant to buy silence about Ellen and the baron.
- Pavel, set on the arranged wedding, speaks to her only as a servant.
- At the station she weeps, and Mrs. Kostritsyn tells her to attend to her duties.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Немые свидетели. (1914).webm)
