Yakov PROTAZANOV
Яков ПРОТАЗАНОВ
Yakov PROTAZANOV
USSR, 1927, 62mn 
Black and white, silent, fiction
Man From The Restaurant
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Человек из ресторана

 

 Le Garçon de restaurant

 Chelovek iz restorana

 
Directed by : Yakov PROTAZANOV (Яков ПРОТАЗАНОВ)
Writing credits : Oleg LEONIDOV (Олег ЛЕОНИДОВ), Yakov PROTAZANOV (Яков ПРОТАЗАНОВ)
 
Cast
Mikhail CHEKHOV (Михаил ЧЕХОВ)
Mikhail KLIMOV (Михаил КЛИМОВ)
Ivan KOVAL-SAMBORSKY (Иван КОВАЛЬ-САМБОРСКИЙ)
Stepan KUZNETSOV (Степан КУЗНЕЦОВ)
Vera MALINOVSKAIA (Вера МАЛИНОВСКАЯ)
Mikhail NAROKOV (Михаил НАРОКОВ)
Sofia YAKOVLEVA (Софья ЯКОВЛЕВА)
Mikhail ZHAROV (Михаил ЖАРОВ)
 
Cinematography : Anatoli GOLOVNIA (Анатолий ГОЛОВНЯ), Konstantin VENTS (Константин ВЕНЦ)
Production design : Sergey KOZLOVSKI (Сергей КОЗЛОВСКИЙ)
Production : Mejrabpom-Rous
 

Plot synopsis
M. Tchekov plays the title role in this silent Soviet curiosity. If the film is to believed, everyone who was anyone in Russia converged upon one restaurant in Moscow, with one waiter, a doddering old gent known only as The Man. As our hero looks on silently, his wealthy clientele grows fatter and fatter, while the poor peasantry continues to starve to death. It gets worse during WWI, with the filthy capitalist swine profiting from the conflict as the proletariat suffers both financially and emotionally. The Man eventually strikes a blow for the Common Man by engineering the ruin of a factory owner who lusts after the innocent heroine.
Hal Erickson, www.allmovie.com
 

Commentaries
Les origines du cinéma soviétique : un regard neuf, Myriam TSIKOUNAS, Cerf, 1992
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- The Golden Age of Soviet Cinema : 1924-1930, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Talents soviétiques - Collection Arkeion, Paris (France), 2019
- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2004