The Living Corpse
About The Living Corpse
Fyodor Protasov (Nikolai Simonov) drinks and leaves his house. His wife Liza (Galina Inyutina) grows close to the family friend Viktor Karenin. Rather than sit through a divorce, Protasov pretends to kill himself. Liza marries Karenin. When it comes out that Protasov is alive, she is charged with bigamy. He shoots himself in court to stop the case.
Cast & crew
More about The Living Corpse
Vladimir Vengerov directed this version of Leo Tolstoy's play The Living Corpse (Zhivoy trup). Lenfilm made it in 1952. Yevgeni Shapiro photographed it. Yelizaveta Time plays Liza's mother, Anna Pavlovna. Bruno Frejndlikh plays the investigator. The Russian title is Живой труп.
Themes
Making
Vengerov kept Tolstoy's last act: the hearing, and Protasov's shot, rather than ending on the pretended suicide.
Look
Yevgeni Shapiro photographed the household and the court.
Preservation
The Lenfilm feature survives.
Notes
- Tolstoy's play had already been filmed in 1911.
- Klavdiya Trofimova plays Liza's sister Sasha.
- Gennadi Michurin plays the lawyer Petrushin.
- The fake death is meant to spare Liza a public divorce hearing.
- The charge against her is bigamy, once the first husband is found alive.
Scenes
- Protasov lets his family believe he is dead.
- Liza, now Karenin's wife, is brought into court.
- He shoots himself at the hearing.
Influenced by
- The Living Corpse by Leo Tolstoy