A film about outstanding actors of the Soviet stage: Angelina Stepanova, Mark Prudkin, Igor Ilyinsky, Faina Ranevskaya, Veriko Andzhaparidze and others.
Igor Ilyinsky reads Anton Pavlovich Chekhov’s stories “The Death of an Official”, “Over Salted”, “The Orator”, “The Night Before the Trial”, “The Daughter of Albion”, “Boots”, “Chameleon”, as much as performing a wide variety of characters.
It is the New Year's Eve and the employees of an Economics Institute are ready with their annual New Year's entertainment program. It includes a lot of dancing and singing, jazz band performance and even magic tricks. Suddenly, an announcement is made that a new director has been elected and that he is arriving shortly. Comrade Ogurtsov arrives in time to review and disapprove of the scheduled entertainment. To him, holiday fun has a different meaning. He imagines speakers reading annual reports to show the Institute's progress over the year, and, perhaps, a bit of serious music, something from the Classics, played by the Veterans' Orchestra. Obviously, no one wants to change the program a few hours before the show, much less to replace it with something so boring! Now everyone has to team up in order to prevent Ogurtsov from getting to the stage. As some of them trap Ogurtsov one way or another, others perform their scheduled pieces and celebrate New Year's Eve.
The movie takes place in one of the Russian provincial cities during the Civil War. A local priest, together with the ex-estate manager buries count's treasures and disguises it as his nephew's funeral. And when his nephew Nikeshka Vonmiglasov, a former Wrangelian, suddenly appears, he understands that he can profit on his magical "resurrection".
History of theft and double crossing when two thieves fall out over the theft of the money of the proceeds of the sale of a house by a banker to a religious community.
A 1925 Soviet comedy sponsored by the Soviet Finance Ministry, with a plot promoting the new economy. A small-town tailor, Petya Petelkin (Ilyinsky), bought a lottery ticket and handed it to his landlord, widow Shirinkina (Deykun) who wants to marry him. Petya is a hard-working tailor trying to start his own business. He is also in love with Katya (Maretskaya), whom he wants to marry. He has to survive a cascade of funny situations in the unstable Soviet reality, before his romance with Katya comes to a happy ending.
As she works in her tedious office job, Maria Ivanovna dreams about being married, and she has particular hopes that her co-worker Nikodim Mityushin will take an interest in her. Nikodim, though, is in love with Zina, who sells cigarettes on the sidewalk, and he frequently buys cigarettes from her even though he does not smoke. One day, a film crew uses Zina as an extra in an outdoor scene, and the cameraman, Latugin, falls in love with her. Latugin soon arranges an acting job for Zina. To complicate matters further, Zina has yet another admirer in Oliver MacBride, an American businessman who is visiting Moscow.
A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.