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IMDbPro

Shakhmatnaya goryachka

  • 19251925
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 28m
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
José Raúl Capablanca, Vladimir Fogel, and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
  • Comedy
  • Short
With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his negl... Read allWith an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of ... Read allWith an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
  • Directors
    • Vsevolod Pudovkin
    • Nikolai Shpikovsky
  • Writer
    • Nikolai Shpikovsky
  • Stars
    • José Raúl Capablanca
    • Vladimir Fogel
    • Anna Zemtsova
Top credits
  • Directors
    • Vsevolod Pudovkin
    • Nikolai Shpikovsky
  • Writer
    • Nikolai Shpikovsky
  • Stars
    • José Raúl Capablanca
    • Vladimir Fogel
    • Anna Zemtsova
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 13User reviews
    • 12Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos31

    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Sergey Komarov in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Yuli Raizman in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)

    Top cast

    Edit
    José Raúl Capablanca
    • The World Champion
    Vladimir Fogel
    Vladimir Fogel
    • The Hero
    Anna Zemtsova
    • The Heroine
    Natalya Glan
    Zakhar Darevsky
    Mikhail Zharov
    Mikhail Zharov
    • House Painter
    Anatoli Ktorov
    Anatoli Ktorov
    • Tram Passenger
    Yakov Protazanov
    Yakov Protazanov
    • Chemist
    Yuli Raizman
    • Chemist's Assistant
    Ivan Koval-Samborsky
    Ivan Koval-Samborsky
    • Policeman
    Konstantin Eggert
    Konstantin Eggert
    Ernst Grunfeld
    • Self
    Fyodor Ivanov
    Fyodor Ivanov
      Sergey Komarov
      Sergey Komarov
      • Grandfather
      Frank Marshall
      • Self
      Richard Reti
      Richard Reti
      • Self
      Rudolph Spielmann
      • Self
      Carlos Torre
      • Self
      • Directors
        • Vsevolod Pudovkin
        • Nikolai Shpikovsky
      • Writer
        • Nikolai Shpikovsky
      • All cast & crew
      • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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      Storyline

      Edit

      Did you know

      Edit
      • Trivia
        Besides José Raúl Capablanca's appearance, the tournament scenes include brief footage of actual games being played in the Moscow 1925 international tournament. Some of the leading chess masters of the era, including Richard Reti, Rudolph Spielmann, Ernst Grunfeld, Frank Marshall, Carlos Torre and F.D. Yates are shown playing their games.
      • Connections
        Featured in Fejezetek a film történetéböl: Az orosz és a szovjet némafilm (1989)

      User reviews13

      Review
      Top review
      Eye-mind
      From afar, this is a simple film, as funny as Buster Keaton in his best day and at least half as inventive - but without the acrobatics. It is a funny vignette, about obsession and love subsumed into plan.

      But there is more to it. Say you have noticed the subterranean waters that connect Franco-Russian cinema into one, and have perhaps noticed that Eisenstein accomodated fractures for the eye while Epstein for the mind; you will want to take a look at this, the most French film made by the Soviets at the time, decades before the French would actually make them.

      The film is about chess. Two levels therein, as in film noir; down below the pawns, moved about according to some inscrutable whim, now and then facing extinction, and on the higher level gods pulling the strings, according plan and movement. This is generally about the game, now notice how the game becomes self-referential in-sight.

      On the outer level there is a Grand Chess tournament, ostensibly real footage of national champions conniving each other over a chess board. Propped before an audience is a giant chess board, where the movements of the players are replicated for the audience to participate - everyone is looking at the screen transfixed, it's a primitive screen, cheering or keeping notes.

      And the nested level inside; a story of love thwarted by a man's morbid obsession with chess. The woman confronts him about it. But it turns out, the world entire is chess. Chess as structured life, the Soviet dream. Even kids are playing it, policemen with those just arrested. The dismayed man walking out of his girlfriend's apartment, staggers onto a floor painted like a chessboard - he moves around as though pulled by strings.

      The denouement takes place on the outer level, back in the tournament hall. The woman, who has newly discovered the wonders of chess, has shattered the juvenile love she clinged to for happiness; instead, she concedes to be part of the plan, the board where life is arranged into pattern and there to move and be moved. You may read what you want into this, but there is power behind the idea; love, that is to say emotional love, is not allowed final say here. Higher laws govern.

      Self-reference; games of fiction; role-playing; and chess as the metaphor that weaves them together. This is what the French made a film culture of - it is certainly nothing like what we know of Pudovkin from his subsequent features. I'd like to think that people like Chris Marker, Jacques Rivette, Raoul Ruiz - who departed just a few days ago - would have adored this. I know I will.
      helpful•4
      1
      • chaos-rampant
      • Aug 23, 2011

      Details

      Edit
      • Release date
        • December 21, 1925 (Soviet Union)
      • Country of origin
        • Soviet Union
      • Language
        • None
      • Also known as
        • Chess Fever
      • Production company
        • Mezhrabpom-Rus
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Technical specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        28 minutes
      • Color
        • Black and White
      • Sound mix
        • Silent
      • Aspect ratio
        • 1.33 : 1

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      José Raúl Capablanca, Vladimir Fogel, and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
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