The Gentlefolks of Skotinin
About The Gentlefolks of Skotinin
On the Prostakov estate, Varvara Massalitinova's Prostakova, born a Skotinin, bullies her family and her serfs. She wants her niece Sophia, Nina Shaternikova, married first to her brother Skotinin and then, after Sophia inherits, to her spoiled son Mitrofan. Her husband is caught with the serf Glasha. Prostakova has Glasha's hair cut and both Glasha and the tailor Trishka flogged. Trishka and Glasha run to the forest and join Pugachev's rebels. Sophia escapes a forced wedding with the officer Milon. The rebels burn the house, Prostakova dies of a stroke, the rising is crushed, and Trishka is led off to execution.
Cast & crew
More about The Gentlefolks of Skotinin
Grigori Roshal's first film, shot in 1926 for the 3rd Factory of Goskino after Mikhail Kresin commissioned it. Serafima Roshal and Vera Stroeva wrote the script from Fonvizin's The Minor, and Anatoly Lunacharsky edited it. Roshal said the studio ordered him to stop filming the Pugachev section before he had finished it. Isaak Makhlis designed the sets. The landlords were played in caricature, with heavy wigs and padded bodies.
Themes
Background
The film was shot in 1926, late in the NEP years, and released in January 1927, the year before the first Five-Year Plan tightened control of Soviet studios.
Making
Roshal and Stroeva pushed Fonvizin's comedy toward the serfs Trishka and Glasha and away from Sophia's romance. The halt on the rebellion scenes left that half shorter than the script.
Reviews
Kino-front, in issue 4 of 1926, called Roshal's debut puzzling: the Fonvizin plot and the Pugachev rising fight each other, the rebellion was cut short by the studio order, Belyaev's Skotinin plays as comic rather than cruel, and a night fire is photographed in daylight.
Look
Nikolai Kozlovsky photographed the seven reels. David Shlyugleit is credited with him as camera operator.
Preservation
A seven-reel print survives and has been digitized; Wikimedia Commons holds a copy filed as the 1926 production.
Notes
- The Russian title is Господа Скотинины. Skotinin is built from skot, the word for cattle, as in Fonvizin.
- Pavel Tamm plays Prostakov, Sofia Yakovleva plays Glasha, Igor Doronin plays Trishka, and Nikolai Belyaev plays Skotinin.
- M. Stepanov is Mitrofan, Nikolai Lazarev is Milon, and Galina Ivanovskaya is the nurse Eremeevna.
- David Shlyugleit is credited beside Nikolai Kozlovsky as camera operator.
- Mosfilm's synopsis still describes the serfs waiting for news of Pugachev while Prostakova rules the house.
- A print circulates under a 1926 date even though the Moscow opening was in January 1927.
Scenes
- Prostakova orders Glasha's hair cut and has her whipped after finding her with Prostakov.
- Trishka and Glasha hide in the forest and fall in with Pugachev's band.
- Sophia is dragged toward a wedding with Mitrofan and gets away with Milon.
- The rebels burn the house; Trishka is later led to execution.
Influenced by
- The Minor by Denis Fonvizin
