The unknown works of the known masters. From the vaults of Gosfilmofond archive

Once again, Gosfilmofond, one of the world’s largest film archives, gives us a chance to look into its bottomless vaults. At the last festival the program “The Unknown Works from the Known Masters” enjoyed a popularity that surprised everyone. We decided to do the second take, dedicating it to unfamiliar roles of beloved actors. It all began with memories about short encounters with the great Inna Churikova that fate had gifted me. After talking about this acquaintance, I looked up her filmography and, with a smile, discovered that in 1964, simultaneously with her classic role as Marfushka in “Morozko” (Frosty), she played… Ang?lique. No, not de Peirac and not de Plessis-Belli?re. Her minor character named Angelica Tumba was a post-war vocational school student or, as they were called at that time, an inmate of a labour reserve school. It’s really fine and amusing. Exactly the year when Mich?le Mercier began rustling her skirts in counts’ salons and royal boudoirs, in the Soviet Union there appeared our own Angelica.

Isn’t it curiously enough to see a young Smoktunovsky in the part of an ordinary village schoolteacher who falls in love with a young colleague with unsettled life? Or to pay tribute to the recently passed away Brigitte Bardot in a small role she played a year before her worldwide triumph? To see Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni appearing for the first time as a married couple eight years before the Oscar-winning film “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” and ten years before “Marriage Italian Style” and the prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1965? Marlon Brando in 1950 was still unknown to anyone. But Ronald Reagan in 1943 was already regarded as a good though not outstanding Hollywood actor. In “Kings Row” he proved that was a brilliant actor. At that time none knew that Mr. Reagan’s main role was still ahead and would be performed not on screen at all…

However, this year the directors of the films from the Gosfilmofond are no longer anonymous either. Edmond Keosayan introduced us to Angelica-Churikova. His directorial style in “Where Are You Now, Maxim?” differs greatly from what we see in “The Elusive Avengers”. The golden classic of the world cinema Ren? Clair late in his career filmed Brigitte Bardot together with G?rard Philipe and Mich?le Morgan. The film featuring Brando, “The Men”, Fred Zinnemann directed just before he “hit it big” with the greatest Western “High Noon”…

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Shortly, many thanks, dear Gosfilmofond! Thank you for being with us. Merci! Grazie! Спасибо!

Sergey Lavrentiev