Awards : Médaille d'or à l'Exposition Internationale des Arts décoratifs, Paris, 1937
Plot synopsis
Filmed in 1937, the Russian Without Dowry was released in America in 1946, one year after the death of its director, Yakov Protazanov. Produced on a far-less epic scale than most Protazanov films, this is a merciless satire of the Russian dowry system in particular and the Czarist regime in general. The heroine (Nina Alisova) is promised in marriage to a bureaucrat (Victor Balikhin), who is interested only in receiving the girl's dowry. Maintaining a gently comic tone throughout most of the proceedings, the story dovetails almost imperceptibly into tragedy. The musical score is based upon Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, with a few Russian folk songs woven in.
Hal Erickson, www.allmovie.com
