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Shakhmatnaya goryachka

  • 19251925
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 28m
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
1.3K
YOUR RATING
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • IMDbPro
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
1.3K
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
  • Photos15

    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Vladimir Fogel and Anna Zemtsova in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    José Raúl Capablanca in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Ivan Koval-Samborsky and Anatoli Ktorov in Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)
    Shakhmatnaya goryachka (1925)

    Top cast

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

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      Storyline

      Edit
      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 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. —Snow Leopard
      • chess
      • chess tournament
      • chess player
      • tournament
      • absent mindedness
      • 13 more
      • Plot summary
      • Add synopsis
      • Genres
        • Comedy
        • Short
      • Certificate
        • Not Rated
      • Parents guide
        • Add content advisory

      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
      8/10
      A film from the Soviet which doesn't try to tell you how to think, AND makes you laugh.
      An absolute pippin of a short, all the more surprising when you think of the dour heavy-handedness that mars Pudovkin's most famous work. Just as delightful is the subject's ambiguity - a welcome break from the wearing, mathematical propaganda that is much of Soviet cinema.

      The central ambiguity of the film is: does it celebrate conformity, or is it a satire on it? In favour of the former proposition is the fact that everyone's playing chess. Like the myth that all Dublin cab-drivers are learned Joyceans, the Soviet populace as a whole seem obsessed with the rigorously intellectual game of chess. The film opens with some dispiritingly authentic chess tournaments - yep, just grandmasters sitting at tables, playing chess, and people watching. Then the comedy begins. Its conflict is that a chess nut's fiancee loathes the game, and cannot escape from it wherever she turns. Her only chance of happiness is to conform to society's pleasure.

      On the other hand, this pleasure is roundly mocked, and the insanity of the chess obsession leads the film from documentary realism, into fantasy, absurdity and the supernatural. The hero is a bonkers chess addict - his cap, scarf and socks are checkered, as is his cigarette case, while he has miniature chess boards, rule books and problem setters all over his body. His straightforward journey to his fiancee is constantly interrupted by chess-related obstacles, which are quite clearly seen to have a fetishistic power over him. This power extends to society as a whole: in one particularly piquant episode, a thief about to be nabbed by a policeman is saved because a stray chessboard falls his way; the hunter and hunted stop to play. Here the mixture of chess and chance are seen to have a disruptive effect on the smooth running of society.

      I suppose whatever way you read it depends on how you view the game itself. In one way it calls for extraordinary intellectual and imaginative powers, the ability to think of alternatives, which runs contrary to the rigidities of a police state. However, chess itself is a rigid game, the board a prison with minutely defined rules. The pieces, like the citizens in a police state, are at their masters' bidding, forever running around in labyrinthine patterns. The film might be quite subversive.

      What it certainly is is a hilarious treat, full of great visual gags and in-jokes, as well as a disturbingly logical Alice in Wonderland-like erosion of structures, and a heroine whose unhappiness is a strange melancholic malaise. There is an irreverent sense of jeu d'esprit almost entirely absent from Soviet cinema.
      helpful•11
      6
      • alice liddell
      • Aug 26, 1999

      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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