Faina Ranevskaya
Acting
Biography
Faina Georgiyevna Ranevskaya (born Faina Girschevna Feldman, on August 27th, 1896 in Taganrog), was a Soviet theatre and film actress. She is also very well known for her cheeky aphorisms. In childhood, she attended the Mariinskaya Gymnasium for Girls, receiving additional education usual for someone from an affluent family (music, singing, foreign languages). Heavily influenced by her mother's love for the arts, Ranevskaya had a budding interest in theatre and by the age of 14 was attending classes at the private theatre studio of A. Jagiello (A.N. Govberg), graduating in 1914. In 1915 she decided to move to Moscow, becoming estranged from her family due to her choice of career. During these years she met M. Tsvetaeva, O. Mandelstam, V. Mayakovsky, and V. Kachalov. In the post-revolutionary years, her family left Russia and settled in Prague, but she stayed to continue pursuing theatre. She worked in the theatres of Kerch, Rostov-on-Don, at the mobile theatre "The First Soviet Theater" in Crimea, also in Baku, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, etc. In fall of 1915, Ranevskaya signed a contract to work in the Kerch troupe of Madame Lavrovskaya. Sadly, the public did not express great interest in the new troupe. Ranevskaya chose her stage name in honor of the main character in Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard. Once, on a walk with a fellow troupe member, Ranevskaya decided to check into the bank. The actress recalls the birth of this pseudonym: "When we came out of the massive bank doors, a gust of wind tore the banknotes out of my hands – the entire amount. I stopped, and, looking at the flying banknotes, said: 'Shame about the money, but how beautifully it flies away!' 'But indeed, you are Ranevskaya!' exclaimed her companion. 'Only she could say that!' When I later had to choose a pseudonym, I decided to take the surname of Chekhov's heroine. We have something in common–but far from everything, far from everything..." Ranevskaya also used to joke about herself, saying that she was Ranevskaya because she had butterfingers. Ranevskaya's mother and her had both greatly admired the writer himself. In 1934, she made her debut in film as Madame Loiseau in Pyshka (dir. Mikhail Romm), based on Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant. Romain Rolland, a French writer, loved the film (his favorite actor in the movie was Ranevskaya). At his request it was shown in French cinemas and became a box-office hit. She remained both prominent film and theatre actress, although most of her work remained in theatre. In her later years, Ranevskaya professed that meeting Pavla Woolf drastically changed her fate; it was thanks to Woolf that she became an actress. They met in 1918, when Ranevskaya worked as an extra for a circus production. She happened to see Pavla Woolf in "A Nest of the Gentlefolk", which left upon her a big impression. She asked the actress to help her (who willingly accepted), and from that day on they remained very close friends.
Known For
Fitil is a popular Soviet/Russian television satirical/comedy short film series which ran for about 500 episodes. Some of the episodes were aimed at children, and were called Фитилёк, Fitilyok, Little Fuse. Each issue contained from the few short segments: documentary, fictional and animated ones. Directed by various artists, including Leonid Gaidai who presented his famous trio of Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov into the cast. It was called in USSR as "the anecdotes from the Soviet government".
Fuse
In search for a better life, Anna leaves her Ukrainian village for a big city. Three years later, she finds herself working two jobs and spending most of her days in a rooming house inhabited by broken people.
Dream
No description available.
Legends of Cinema
A drab woman scientist, working on machine to harness solar energy, and a pert concert singer look-alike being courted to play her in a movie swap identities and find personal growth, professional success, love, and happiness.
Spring
In the fairy kingdom live stepmother, her evil daughters — Anna and Maryana, a limp husband-forester and his daughter from his first marriage — Cinderella. The stepmother exploits the poor girl as a housekeeper. With the help of her godmother-fairy, Cinderella gets to the royal ball, where a beautiful and very kind prince falls in love with her. At midnight, the magic ends, and poor Cinderella has to return to her former life. But on the crystal shoe that Cinderella lost while fleeing the palace to the battle of the palace chimes, the prince searches for the bride.
Cinderella
Soviet and American soldiers are meeting on the shores of the Elbe river in Germany in 1945.
Meeting on the Elbe
No description available.
How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
The film is about the exploit of a nineteen-year-old soldier of the Great Patriotic War - Alexander Matrosov, who covered the embrasure of the enemy's bunker with his body.
Private Aleksandr Matrosov
According to the eponymous vaudeville by A.P. Chekhov. Petty bourgeois Zhigalovs, whose daughter-in-law Dasha is being extradited, find out to their horror that the official Aplombov, who has been caring for Dasha all summer, has dined every day with them and has proved himself to be his bridegroom, is not going to marry at all.
Wedding
The Great Patriotic War is over, but Major Sorokin and Colonel Dobrygin still have a lot to do for their homeland. They must go to West Germany in order to find and return the children who were taken out of the Soviet Union by the Nazis and are now kept in atrocious conditions under the supervision of British intelligence. Former allies want to grow real spies out of their children.
They Have a Motherland
A Soviet cartoon adaptation of a classic Swedish tale by Astrid Lindgren about Karlsson-on-the-Roof.
Junior and Karlson
Young Lena becomes a chief manager of a workers' club. The problem is this club is not constructed yet and finishing it takes too much effort from a young girl. The solution is found by her grandmother and her 'old guards'. Look out Lena's enemies. Here's her grandma coming!
Be Careful, Grandma!
All the girls of one of the Moscow houses can tirelessly jump over a skipping rope. But little Lida did: can't learn to jump. Once in a dream a wise elephant gives her a piece of advice: to learn how to jump, you must first do a good deed...
An Elephant and a Rope
A romantic story about the girl working in the musical instruments store.
A Girl with Guitar
A chemist by training, Alexandr Bochkin manages a Moscow dry-cleaning operation, but lives a very comfortable life, taking orders on the side for his speculative "private enterprise," run in conjunction with "Queen Margot". But when his old friend from the chemical institute, Yuri Lebedev arrives in Moscow from the Siberian city of Dalnegorsk, along with a traveling companion, Olga, Bochkin becomes uncomfortable with his job title.
An Easy Life
A little girl is lost in Moscow and hits the road making fun (not intentionally) of everybody she meets. She'll be back home soon but she will change the life of at least one man forever...
The Foundling
A new girl becomes circus star despite her husband objective.
New Attraction Today
The Greek teacher Belikov, who works in a rural gymnasium, loved to keep things in cases, was afraid of everything and lived himself, as if in a case, on the principle: “no matter what happens”. By this principle, he literally "terrorized" the gymnasium and the villagers. Hope appeared when Varenka arrived in the village - “not a girl, but marmalade”, although she was already aged, and “did not mind being married, even if only to a teacher of the Greek language”.
Man in a Shell
TV version of the acclaimed stage production of Viña Delmar's script for the film Make Way for Tomorrow.
The Rest Is Silence
The New Adventures of Schweik adopted to the WWII reality.