Leonid Kuravlyov

This Russian comedy is the sequel to The Twelve Chairs, which told of a madcap search by a con-man and a nobleman in post-communist Russia for a chair containing a king’s ransom in hidden diamonds. Presumably dead at the end of the first film, charming con-man Ostap Bender is alive and kicking and looking for another way to get rich. He discovers an underground Soviet millionaire, Alexander Koreiko, and begins blackmailing him in an attempt to accomplish his lifelong goal of having one million rubles. With that amount of money, he believes he could fulfill his dream of moving to Rio de Janeiro. In the pursuit of his many schemes, he uses an ill-assorted gang of fellow miscreants: Shura the simple-minded young ex-convict, Panikovsky an older con man, and the unusually unlucky driver Adam Kozlevich. He has many wild adventures in his quest. The witty and satirical novel on which this movie is based, written in 1930, was prohibited until the 1950s, when it became a cult novel in the USSR.Read More »

Plot:
World War II veteran Kuzma Kuzmich Iordanov has become a heavy drinker with no interest in finding employment of any kind. He joins a collective farm, claiming to be the father of Natasha, a resident there, and is forced to analyze his life when he finds himself falling in love.Read More »

Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Occupation
An unconventional comedy based on M. Bulgakov’s play, “Ivan Vassilevich,” when inventor, Timofeev builds a time machine, things go awry. Tsar Ivan the Terrible comes into the year 1973, while Ivan Bunsha, an apartment complex manager, and George Miloslavsky, a petty burglar, are transferred to 16th century Moscow accidentally.Read More »

This Russian film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s story was for a long time the only horror film made in the Soviet Union. Khoma (Leonid Kuravlev), a young novice, travels across the countryside and stays for a night in a barn that belongs to an ugly old woman. When she attacks him at night and takes him for a broom ride, the scared novice fatally wounds her, and before she dies, she turns into a beautiful young noblewoman (Natalya Varley). The latter leaves a will, according to which Khoma should pray for her for three nights in the chapel until her body is buried. At night, the witch rises from the coffin and tries to catch Khoma. She flies around but she can’t reach him or see him because he stays inside the circle that he has drawn around himself. During the third and last night, the witch makes the last attempt to scare him out of the circle, and she calls all sorts of ugly creatures to help her… Gogol wrote several stories based on Ukrainian folklore, many of them dealing with the Devil and the supernatural. ~ Yuri German, All Movie GuideRead More »

Quote:
The 1975 film by Georgi Daneliya “Afonya” was an unexpected commercial hit in USSR. The main character Borshev A.N. is a locksmith who spends his free time, as well as working hours, drinking with his buddies whom he even doesn’t recognize the next day after another heavy drink. His wife leaves him, his boss places him on probation, his whole life is falling a part but he doesn’t realize it. There is only one person who can save him – nurse Katya whom he met on dances and didn’t pay much attention to… Daneliya manages to balance in the film satire and drama, quotes from the film gained a cult status in Russia and other former countries of USSR.Read More »