Podrugi (1936)

Director:

Lev Arnshtam

Writers:

Lev Arnshtam (writer)
Nikolai Tikhonov (writer)

Release Date:

11 February 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Romance

Plot Keywords:

Lost Film

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Yanina Zhejmo	...	Asya
Irina Zarubina	...	Natasha
Zoya Fyodorova	...	Zoya (as Z. Fyodorova)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
I. Antipova	...	Zoya as a child
Boris Babochkin	...	Andrei
Serafima Birman
Boris Blinov
Mariya Blyumental-Tamarina	...	Grandmother (as M. Blyumental-Tamarina)
Nikolai Cherkasov
Boris Chirkov	...	Senka
D. Pape	...	Natasha as a child
Varvara Popova	...	Daughter
Vera Popova
Boris Poslavsky	...	Stilich, the agitator
Pavel Sukhanov

Also Known As:

The Girlfriends
Three Women (USA)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Lenfilm Studio

An unknown Shostakovich score

Podrugi (Girlfriends) is the story of the friendship between three girls, who start the film aged around 10 and who grow up together, eventually becoming nurses at the Russian front during the First World War. It was directed by Lev Arnshtam and featured a music score by Dmitri Shostakovich, their third collaboration following on from The Golden Mountains (1931) and Counterplan (1932) for which Arnshtam wrote the screenplay.

The narrative is straightforward and the storyline only mildly interesting but it is for the music that the film holds interest today, especially as it remains unrecorded apart from three preludes released on a rare Russian Melodiya LP in 1988 (C10 26307 004). The score is unusual in that much of the music is for string quartet although piano, trumpet and timpani are sometimes utilised. There are also passages for organ and later an electronic instrument, probably a Theremin, played in a drunken fashion and a couple of cues for full orchestra. Altogether there a significant amount of musical material contained within the film and a new recording would certainly be an interesting and valuable addition to the catalogue and much overdue.

For a more detailed discussion on this and other films with music by Shostakovich see Dmitri Shostakovich: A Life in Film, written by John Riley and published by I. B. Tauris, London and New York in the series Kinofiles Film Companion, 2004.