The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-12
NeVV RnSSianFi i'm
Worthy Addition
to Soviet MOVieArt
Petersburg Nights"
Reviewed by
TOM BRANDON

THE Cameo Theatre on And ST.
l Fe-epened under new manage
ment Saturday with the new Soviet
sound film, Petersburg Nights"
which, according to the program
note, was acclaimed an eutstand-
ing masterpiece of cinema art at
the World Exhibition of CHINA
Biography, held in Venice several
weeks ago"
The Cameo closed for many
months because of failure, due TO
having abandoned its former sue
cessful policy of showing foreign
and principally Soviet films. now
reyerts to the old policy and may
once again hold capacity audiences.
With the proper admission prices it
could no doubt attract that great
masses of moVie-goers whose Feac-
ton to bourgeois films and to the
bourgeois film purifiers" may be
expressed, with appropriate ges-
lures, as being "A plague on both
your hOuSes!"
Petersburg Nights" directed by
@. Roshal, is based on the Dosto-
yeVsky novel White Nights" and
dramatically develops the tragedy
of an honest, creative musician who
is almost completely crushed in the
Philistinism of old Czarist Russia.
Egor, the serf, playing clarinet in
the private orchestra of his master,
becomes a self-taught Vielinist
whose genius propsls him in the
direction of st. Petersburg for ere
alive freedom, great audiences,
fame. He escapes to the city OF
white nights" and courageously
and honestly attempts to create
music mot for the sake of counter
point, harmony and form, but to
express the people, the people I
know so we'll"
In the wise of Philistine Russia,
crushed by the lifeless aristocracy,
he sinks into the spiritless n1orass
of the fettered and frustrated ar
tist-broken, degraded, drunk:
symbol of the creative artist in
Czarist Russia.
IT seems to me that Director
Roshal has been vastly more eff
feetive in recreating a section of
life in feudal Russia than Director
Ivanovski in House of Greed-at
least on one major count. Both
films are sustained by distinguished
acting; both are essentially charac-
ter pertFsyels While in Heusc OF
Greed the character of Iudishka
the Bloodsucker is developed within
the narrow canvas of the one feu-
DIAL family, in the new film Egor,
the central character, is developed
not merely by his acting, but by
showing him in struggle with the
class forces of the particular Pc
Rod as the framework.
In Petersburg Nights" the full
character of Egor, as an individual
and as a symbol, is heightened and
brought to life because his strug-
giles are seen in relation to the class
forces of the particular period; he
meets and is influenced by band
OF nihilists. In this way, with the
class forces definitely polarized, the
struggle of Egor takes on meaning;
the stultifying nature of the bour-
geeisie is more clearly OWNED.
When ali but life is crushed from
Egor, he falls upon an amazing
sight: the masses of workers from
a nearby factory are marching by
on strike-singing the very music
he created with them In mind. the
music the beurgeoisie would net ae-
eept from him. And Egor. the
crushed artist, sings with the mill
tant workers who have put blood
and flesh into his music. He sings
the words the workers have created
for his song.
COMPLEX and controversial as the
" problem of adapting noYels 70.
the screen may be ameng cinema
esthetes, we must state emphati-
cally that Petersburg Nights" cred
itably brings the genius of Dosto-
yeysky to the screen, constituting.
with the singularly appropriate mu-
sic by D. Kovalesky and the mag
nificent performance of the entire
cast, worthy addition to the
mounting array of Soviet works of
art.
On the same program Is a de-
cidedly interesting example of
powerful lens photography some
what idiotically devoted to filming
a flea juggling a dumb bell: also
an animated cartoon that thinks
Negro "picaninnies' are very fun
ny subject.