''Red Pawn'' is a
screenplay
''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993.
Background
After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...
written by
Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...
. It was the first screenplay that Rand sold.
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
purchased it in 1932. ''Red Pawn'' features the theme of the evil of dictatorship, specifically of
Soviet Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
.
''Red Pawn'' is a
spy thriller
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligen ...
set on Strastnoy Island in an undisclosed location in northern
Soviet Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
during the 1920s. On the island is a converted monastery used as an institution for
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s. The screenplay follows Joan Harding, aka Frances Volkontzeva, an American woman who infiltrates Strastnoy Island to free her imprisoned husband, Michael Volkontzev.
Joan enters the prison under the pretext of being the new wife of the prison head Commandant Kareyev given to him by the state. A
love triangle
A love triangle or eternal triangle is a scenario or circumstance, usually depicted as a rivalry, in which two people are pursuing or involved in a romantic relationship with one person, or in which one person in a romantic relationship with so ...
develops between the three characters as Joan works to free her husband while fooling the prison staff and Kareyev as to her true intentions.
The rights to the screenplay belong to
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, though the screenplay has never been adapted to film.
Plot
Joan Harding arrives by boat at Strastnoy Island and is presented to Commandant Kareyev as his new, state-granted wife. Kareyev greets Joan coldly, believing that she will leave when the next boat comes six months later. Kareyev takes Joan on a tour around the prison island during which she observes the prisoners. Joan's husband, Michael Volkontzev, recognizes her and calls out to her, but she pretends not to recognize him. It is only later in her room that Joan (real name Frances Volkontzeva) reunites with Michael and tells him of her plan to free him. She will sneak him onto the next boat and help him escape the country through the help of an English merchant in the nearby town of
Nijni Kolimsk. She asks that Michael trust her and keep his distance so Kareyev and others do not suspect that they know each other.
Months pass and Joan becomes friends with many of the
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s on the island, and slowly Commandant Kareyev begins to feel affection for her. Michael is torn over how his wife seems to return that affection and begins to doubt his wife's intentions. Joan arranges for Michael to sneak onto the next boat while the guard is given leave by Kareyev at her insistence, but she will not be joining Michael on the boat. He is to go alone while she stays with Kareyev. Joan tells Michael to meet up with the merchant and that in order to avoid suspicion, she would follow in the coming months.
The night of his escape, Michael barges into Kareyev's room and tells the Commandant that he has attempted to escape and reveals that Joan is his wife. Kareyev has his assistant, Comrade Fedossitch, place Michael in detention and tell Joan that she will be taking the ferry the next day to leave Strastnoy Island. Joan confesses her love for Kareyev and begs him to leave his post and escape with her and Michael, so that she and Kareyev can live together. Kareyev considers her offer but refuses, saying that he cannot betray his Party and his comrades. He tells Joan to pack her things to depart alone in the morning.
Fedossitch confronts Kareyev, telling him Joan should be arrested for deceiving them and the Party. Kareyev puts Fedossitch under arrest and then goes to Joan's room and tells her to follow him to the detention tower to free Michael, so all three of them can escape. The three board the ferry and make their way to shore where they commandeer a horse sled from a local farmer. As the trio make their way to shore, it is discovered that Michael, Joan, and Kareyev are no longer on the island and Fedossitch is freed by a fellow officer. Fedossitch finds that the radio is destroyed, so he alerts the shore of the escape using the monastery's bell and light signals.
Kareyev, Michael, and Joan attempt to flee to the merchant's house and are forced to seek shelter in an empty barn. The two men begin fighting over who should be with Joan. They ask her who she loves, but before Joan has the chance to answer they are discovered and arrested. The commanding officer reveals that Joan and the traitorous commandant are to be taken to the
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate (also translated as the State Political Administration) (GPU) was the intelligence service and secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from February 6, 1922, to December 29, 1922, ...
headquarters in Nijni Kolimsk, mentioning that it is across the street from an English merchant's house. Joan realizes there is still hope if they can escape their cells and go across the street. However, the commander reveals that Michael is to be taken away for immediate execution. The soldier, unable to distinguish the two male captives, asks Joan to identify which man is her husband. Joan points to Kareyev and tells soldiers he is the one; he makes no objections. The screenplay ends as Kareyev is taken away for execution while Joan and Michael are driven to Nijni Kolimsk with the hope of escape and a future together.
History
![Ayn Rand (1943 Talbot portrait)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Ayn_Rand_%281943_Talbot_portrait%29.jpg)
Rand began writing ''Red Pawn'' in 1931.
She had emigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union five years earlier. Prior to starting ''Red Pawn'', she had worked as a junior screenwriter for
Cecil B. DeMille, but by 1931 she was working in the wardrobe department at
RKO
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...
Studios.
[; ] She had been writing her debut novel, ''
We the Living
''We the Living'' is the debut novel of the Russian American novelist Ayn Rand. It is a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia and was Rand's first statement against communism. Rand observes in the foreword that ''We the Living'' was the cl ...
'', but took a break to write the screenplay in hopes of earning enough money to allow her to write full-time. She sold the screenplay and the synopsis to Universal Pictures in 1932 for $1,500, her first professional sale.
The studio postponed the filming of the screenplay several times, and with Hollywood entering its
Red Decade
Eugene Lyons (July 1, 1898 – January 7, 1985) was an American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of Communism in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union after several years there as a correspondent of United P ...
, the anti-Soviet themes of the film made it unattractive to filmmakers.
[ Universal later traded the property to Paramount, which has held onto the rights since, although ''Red Pawn'' has never been filmed.][
]
Significance
Professor of literature at Anderson College Jena Trammell has cited ''Red Pawn'' as a crucial point in Rand's career and in the development of her aesthetic philosophy, romantic realism Romantic realism is art that combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another.
In literature and art
The term has long standing ...
.[
''We the Living'', finally published in 1936, shares some basic plotlines with ''Red Pawn''. Both feature a ]love triangle
A love triangle or eternal triangle is a scenario or circumstance, usually depicted as a rivalry, in which two people are pursuing or involved in a romantic relationship with one person, or in which one person in a romantic relationship with so ...
set against the background of the early Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, with the woman protagonist having an anti-Communist lover and a Communist one, and with the Communist finally compromising or renouncing his ideological allegiance for love of her.
Notes
References
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{{Ayn Rand, state=autocollapse
Unproduced screenplays
Films with screenplays by Ayn Rand
Works published posthumously