Vladimir Vill

Based on the play of the same name by I. Popov and L. Stepanov, staged by the State Academic Maly Theater of the USSR.

The action takes place in 1714 in the London royal palace of St. James. The Duchess of Marlborough, the favorite of the weak-willed queen, skillfully rules the state. Her political opponent, former minister Lord Bolingbroke, dreaming of restoring his influence at court, successfully wages a cunning war against the duchess, using the rivalry between the queen and the duchess of Marlborough, who are in love with the young officer Mesham.

Two village boys - brothers Semyon and Pavel - serve a Moscow merchant-shopkeeper. They face harsh exploitation and hard forced labor. The brothers' life paths diverge. Unable to withstand the merchant's bullying, Pavel goes to the factory, becomes a worker, and later a professional revolutionary. Semyon remains in service. In the post-revolutionary period, Semyon, having been to the front and returning to the village, joined the kulaks, brutally dealt with representatives of the Soviet government, becoming the head of a gang of “badgers” hiding in the forests. A Red Army detachment led by Pavel is sent to fight the bandits...

A wounded partisan took refuge in the mill, and the miller informed the second lieutenant of the government troops about this. Seeing the partisan, the second lieutenant recognizes him as a friend of his youth...

Eugénie Grandet is set in the town of Saumur. Eugénie's father Felix is a former cooper who has become wealthy through both business ventures and inheritance (having inherited the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother all in one year). However, he is very miserly, and he, his wife, daughter, and their servant Nanon live in a run-down old house which he is too miserly to repair. His banker des Grassins wants Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, and his lawyer Cruchot wants Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot des Bonfons, both parties eyeing the inheritance from Felix. The two families constantly visit the Grandets to get Felix's favour, and Felix in turn plays them off against each other for his own advantage.