''The Great Consoler'' (russian: Великий утешитель,

translit. Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

Velikiy uteshitel) is a 1933 Soviet drama film directed by Lev Kuleshov and starring

Konstantin Khokhlov Konstantin Pavlovich Khokhlov (russian: link=no, Константин Павлович Хохлов, 1 November 1885 – 1 January 1956) was a Soviet stage and film actor, theater director, teacher. People's Artist of the USSR (1944). Sele ...

. The film is based on the facts from the biography of the American writer

O. Henry William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. His works include "The Gift of the M ...

and on his two novels.

Plot

Saleswoman Dulcie dreams of a better, beautiful world. Her dreams are based on the stories of writer Bill Porter, who became victim of a judicial verdict and began his literary career in prison. No special misdemeanors are attributed to him and he even enjoys the right of free movement. The administration appreciates the writer because while serving his sentence he writes beautiful stories with happy endings. Soon, however the successful writer has to face the obvious injustices going on in the prison. In particular, the writer's friend, Jim Valentine is severely beaten for politically motivated reasons. However, once Valentine is offered freedom in exchange for help in opening a safe. This proposal allows Porter to think about the imminent departure of his friend from prison. Fantasies on this topic become the basis for a new story for the writer. But the prison administration does not keep the promise and Valentine soon dies. His death is marked by a revolt of prisoners who are dissatisfied with the existing order. Dulcie's pipe dreams are also destroyed and she ends up killing her roommate. And Bill Porter comes to the conclusion that he is not able to resist the existing order but that someday another one will come.

Cast

- Bill Porter *

Ivan Novoseltsev Ivan Petrovich Novoseltsev (born January 23, 1979) is a Russian former professional ice hockey winger. He is the uncle of Vladislav Namestnikov. Playing career As a youth, Novoseltsev played in the 1993 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tourna ...

- Jim Valentine - aka Ralph D. Spenser * Vasili Kovrigin - Warden * Andrei Fajt - Det. Ben Price *

Daniil Vvedensky Daniil (russian: Даниил) is a Russian language, Russian masculine given name; equivalent to that of the English given name Daniel. Notable examples People named Daniil include: Arts and literature *Daniil Andreyev (1906–1959), Russian wri ...

- Jailguard * Weyland Rodd - Black convict *

O. Rayevskaya O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. O may also refer to: Letters * Օ օ, (Unicode: U+0555, U+0585) a letter in the Armenian alphabet * Ο ο, Omicron, (Greek), a letter in the Greek alphabet * O (Cyrillic), a letter of the ...

- Jim's mother *

S. Sletov S is the nineteenth letter of the English alphabet. S may also refer to: History * an Anglo-Saxon charter's number in Peter Sawyer's, catalogue Language and linguistics * Long s (ſ), a form of the lower-case letter s formerly used where "s ...

- Jailguard * Aleksandra Khokhlova - Dulcie * Galina Kravchenko - Annabel Adams * Pyotr Galadzhev - E. Adams - banker / reporter *

Vera Lopatina Vera may refer to: Names * Vera (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Vera (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) **Vera (), archbishop of the archdiocese of Tarr ...

- Sadie * Mikhail Doronin - Innkeeper *

Andrei Gorchilin Andrei, Andrey or Andrej (in Cyrillic script: Андрэй , Андрей or Андреј) is a form of Andreas/Ἀνδρέας in Slavic languages and Romanian. People with the name include: *Andrei of Polotsk (–1399), Lithuanian nobleman *And ...

- Convict

Production

''The Great Consoler'' was done extremely efficiently and did not exceed the budget. The picture was filmed in forty days; editing and soundtrack were completed in sixteen days. The cinematography was done using Soviet manufactured film stock. Kuleshov when making the film, relied heavily on rehearsals, making sure that the actors would totally replicate the results on screen.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Great Consoler, The 1933 films 1930s Russian-language films 1933 drama films Soviet black-and-white films Films directed by Lev Kuleshov Adaptations of works by O. Henry Soviet drama films