From his early silent works, the great Russian film director, Herr Yakov Protazanov, made literary adaptations from equally great Russian writers, as is the case with "Chiny I Lyudi" ( Ranks And People ) (1929) in which three short stories by Chekhov, "Anna On The Neck", "Death Of A Petty Official" and "Chameleon" were assembled for the silent screen.
Mikhail TarkhanovModest Alekseich - Anna na shee
Mariya StrelkovaAnna Petrovna - Anna na shee
Andrey PetrovskyGovernor - Anna na sheeNikolay ShcherbakovAnna's father - Anna na shee
Viktor StanitsynArtynov - Anna na shee
Ivan MoskvinCherviakov, the bureaucrat - Smert' chinovnikaYevgeni YershovGeneral Brizzhalov - Smert' chinovnikaDaniil VvedenskiyPoliceman - Khameleon
Vladimir PopovKhriukin - Khameleon
Sofya LevitinaGossip - Anna na shee
A certain Mr. Mlácen is brought to the asylum, wanting to sell two church bells. He first offers them to merchants in an inn. He claims that he received them as an inheritance from his uncle, but he doesn't know what to do with them. But no one wants to buy them. Because of this, he first finds himself in a commissary and is eventually sent to an asylum. The professor (L. Kopřiva), who believes that Mr. Mlácen suffers from some kind of fixed idea and is mentally ill, promises him that he will buy his two bells back...
Cursed since childhood, dentist Charlie Logan cannot find the right woman. Even worse, he learns that each of his ex-girlfriends finds true love with the man she meets after her relationship with him ends. Hearing of Charlie's reputation as a good-luck charm, women from all over line up for a quick tryst. But when Charlie meets the woman of his dreams, he must find a way to break the curse or risk losing her to the next man she meets.
When Margot, a college sophomore, goes on a date with the older Robert, she finds that IRL Robert doesn’t live up to the Robert she has been flirting with over texts.
Newly-widowed Mabel Lederer, who has psychic and mediumistic abilities, sells her house and belongings, changes her name, and moves to a new town. There she rents a room in a boarding house and holds a seance with the other tenants, with comical results.
Conducting clandestine experiments within the morgue at Miskatonic University, scientist Herbert West reveals to a fellow graduate student his groundbreaking work concerning the re-animation of fresh corpses.
Two historical stories about love. In the story "The Arabian Horse", the scheming townsman Messer Francesco Vergellesi is so firmly convinced of his wife's virtue that he does not hesitate to bet her against a rare stallion he has a crush on... The story "The Earrings" shows how a poor girl can help herself to a rare jewel and what intrigues are needed for an elderly noble couple to finally have an heir...
In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.
A surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche.
Pete, a young orphan, runs away to a Maine fishing town with his best friend a lovable, sometimes invisible dragon named Elliott! When they are taken in by a kind lighthouse keeper, Nora, and her father, Elliott's prank playing lands them in big trouble. Then, when crooked salesmen try to capture Elliott for their own gain, Pete must attempt a daring rescue.
Gambler Nathan Detroit has few options for the location of his big craps game. Needing $1,000 to pay a garage owner to host the game, Nathan bets Sky Masterson that Sky cannot get virtuous Sarah Brown out on a date. Despite some resistance, Sky negotiates a date with her in exchange for bringing people into her mission. Meanwhile, Nathan's longtime fiancée, Adelaide, wants him to go legit and marry her.
A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.
While a plague devastates the peasantry, a mad prince hosts a masquerade ball for the noble class in his castle. A long-lost twin, hidden among the lower class, enters the castle and is received into a decadent world of orgies, opium, power schemes, revenge, and decapitations.
For the first time ever, we’ve assembled five shorts about death, loneliness, and dismemberment into one big, old-fashioned yukfest. On their own, they would have been too depressing to put out into the world. But together, they form into a Voltron of hilarity, if Voltron was eventually going to die facedown in the snow, sad and alone.
A short satire by Ladislav Rychman on "mischief" in the authorities. The successor of the General Director of the Central Food Stores, who literally worked himself to death, is called Nekluda and comes from Liberec...