Pikovaya dama

Pikovaya dama (1910)

*** (out of 4)

Germann (Pavel Biryukov) learns of a woman who in her youth discovered a secret to three cards. German plans to steal the information so that he can become a master at cards but in doing so the woman dies.

This Russian film was the first version of Alexander Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" and for the most part it's pretty good. At just fifteen-minutes there's obviously not enough time to go into great details of the story but all of the basic plot points are here and it makes for an entertaining film. The performances are actually quite good and especially Biryukov who plays the lead. Obviously these are performances from the era so one really shouldn't complain as acting them shouldn't be compared to what came in the sound era. The production values were quite good and the film certainly looks very good.

This was apparently the earliest of a good number of efforts to film Pushkin's classic short story "The Queen of Spades". It is an ambitious attempt for its time, and it works pretty well as long as you are familiar with the story. It is no surprise that later adaptations of the material were able to get more of the story across, but Pyotr Chardynin's effort is at least a creditable one.

Chardynin seems to have had some real enthusiasm for the project. Although the camera technique is mostly straightforward, most of the settings and details are carefully done, and each scene seems to have been carefully planned.

Somewhat surprisingly, Chardynin made a couple of significant alterations to the original story, and it would be interesting to know how it was received in its time, given the reverence for Pushkin that many Russians of the era surely would have had. Certainly there have been far lesser literary works whose admirers are vocal in their criticism of film-makers who change the details for the sake of cinematic effect.

It would probably be much harder to follow this version without having read the story, since even with the inter-titles, there is still much that viewers are expected to know or grasp on their own. In Russia in 1910, it was probably a perfectly reasonable expectation to assume that everyone knew the original story, which is a masterfully-crafted classic of psychology and human ambition, with a strong dose of the supernatural.

It's worth seeing for the story alone, even if you first have to take the time to read the original story (which is not that long). It builds up the suspense about as well as you could expect for its time, and the compelling climax comes off well enough.

Pretty sure I saw an earlier version of this Pushkin tale, but can't find it listed here on IMDb. Either way, this version adds nothing new to that earlier version despite having visibly better production values - although the ghostly Countess looks impressively ghoulish.