Heroes of the Cheka
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Heroes of the Cheka |
| Original title | Сотрудник ЧК |
| Country of production | Soviet Union |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Boris Israeliwitsch Woltschek |
| script | Boris Woltschek Alexander Lukin Dmitri Poljanowski |
| production | Mosfilm |
| music | Eduard Lazarev |
| camera | W. Minaev |
| occupation | |
| |
Heroes of the Cheka ( Russian : Сотрудник ЧК ; Sotrudnik Cheka = literally: Employee of the Cheka ) is a Soviet feature film from 1963, which takes place in the Russian Civil War in 1920 and deals with the activities of the Cheka . It is based on the novel Tscheka intervenes by the former Tscheka member Alexander Lukin (1901–1975), who was also involved in the script .
content
The 20-year-old Red Army soldier Aljoscha is assigned to a government department of the Cheka by the party leadership of the Bolsheviks of the 1st Red Cavalry Army from Semyon Mikhailovich Budjonny . On his way to his new place of work, he met a young girl on a barge , but he was separated from her on landing because the barge was taken under artillery fire by white troops .
On the way to his place of work, a city not named, he meets a squad of Red Army soldiers who are accompanying a transport of soldiers' bodies. The dead soldiers were part of a transport of wounded that fell into the hands of white troops and were massacred by them.
At the Cheka headquarters he meets the brutal Commissioner Illarionov, who brutally arrests a friendly Cheka secretary immediately after his arrival. As it turns out, however, she has been forwarding official reports to the White Guards for a long time and is therefore also responsible for the murder of the wounded Red Army soldiers whose bodies Aljoscha saw on the journey. Aljoscha is confused because so far he has only fought in one war in which the enemy is clearly recognizable by his uniform. The Cheka commander Bersin reassures him; even he did not start out as a chekist:
I would like to give you one thing on your way. The Cheka's work is difficult. Needs a sure instinct. And what is its secret? That you can only do it if you have clean hands.
Bersin uses Alyosha and Illarionov to solve a food scandal in a hospital . The hospital inmates have taken the cook and the doctors prisoner, believing that they have embezzled meat that is urgently needed to care for the wounded. While Illianow and the hospital inmates want to make short work of the accused, Aljoscha demands an investigation into the incident. In the presence of the accused and the hospital inmates, three pounds of meat are weighed and then cooked. It turns out that a third of the mass is lost through the cooking process and the allegations against the cook and the doctors are not justified. The hospital inmates are enthusiastic about Alyosha and Illarionov because of the clarification of the case.
Aljoscha befriends the child soldier Pantyushka. This one is brave, but also very cocky. He brings a Alyosha Ringer trick in which he has learned from the Cheka Member Burkaschin, was the former wrestler. Conversely, Aljoscha Pantjuschka teaches to act more carefully.
The local commander of the Red Army's shore and ship artillery, Kramow, tells Bersin that the white troops are constantly destroying his artillery, which is only possible because they have information about the location of the guns. Apparently, besides the arrested secretary, there is also a leak on the part of the Red Army. Aljoscha should clear up this leak. The following night he leads a reconnaissance team, and it turns out that Kramow himself is the traitor. Kramow has persuaded a signal telegraph operator to give flashing signals to the white troops. Kramov escapes, but Alyosha manages to arrest the telegraph operator. During the interrogation he confesses that the girl Dina, who works as a telephone operator in the post office, is involved in the transmission of messages, but is innocent. The mastermind behind this espionage is a Kruchev from Voronezh . This wears a scar above the left eyebrow. During the interrogation of a priest , Aljoscha Kruchev learns his real name: Markov.
At the White Headquarters, Markov explains to former tsarist officers that the only way to win the civil war is to win new allies. To this end, he invited the anarchist Smargin to a meeting. Smargin declares his readiness to fight with his peasants on the side of the whites against the Bolsheviks. An old man is also present at the meeting and is closely following the conversation.
Bersin initiates a special operation. Aljoscha is used as a camouflage clerk at the Red Army staff. To do this, he is supposed to work with a Cheka employee named Koroljowa. When he visits her in her house, it turns out that she is the girl Maria, whom he met on the barge. Maria also knows Dina Fedessova, the operator at the post office. She is the daughter of the former tsarist high school director, who fled the city with his wife, and is considered anti-Bolshevik. As it now turns out, Marussja's grandfather was an informant at the white headquarters and learned of Smargin's collaboration.
Aljoscha uses a trick to contact Dina. She is harassed in the post office by two drunk riders from the 1st Cavalry Army. Aljoscha stages a fight in which he is injured, but also wins Dina's sympathies. He pretends to reject the Bolsheviks. Dina then contacts Markov and tells him about Aljoscha. Markov is skeptical, but Dina assures him that her feeling tells her that Alyosha is honest. Markov reluctantly agrees to trust Alyosha. Dina sees her role model in Charlotte Corday , the murderer of Jean Paul Marat . She wants to restore the bourgeois world before the October Revolution , in which she was happy. She learns from Markov that he comes from Voronezh.
Aljoscha recognizes Markov by the scar in a photo album of Dina: it is a former classmate of his from the grammar school in Voronezh. Dina now wants to help Aljoscha to save the fatherland. Markov and Aljoscha meet for the first time on an island. Markov mistrusts him in spite of their school days together, since Alyosha fought in the Red Army. Aljoscha would like to make him safe, a test to prove his loyalty to the whites. Markov demands that he obtain the Red Army's operational plan. Alyosha worried the plan will but as further evidence a time fuse bomb at the headquarters of the Red Army to install. Alyosha reveals this plan to Bersin. When examining the bomb, it turns out that it would have exploded well before the scheduled time and would have killed Alyosha as well.
Marussja and Pantjuschka are now smuggled into the white camp as siblings. Pantyushka plays Marussja's deaf-mute brother. Marussja is harassed by Smargin, who absolutely wants to marry her. Pantjuschka recognizes the explosive situation and wants to get help. To do this, he needs the horse of a farmer who, however, distrusts both the white and the red. But when the anarchists steal an icon for the upcoming wedding , the farmer takes Pantyushka's side and lends him his horse. The boy rides through the rainy night and informs the chekists.
At the wedding party, Marussia sees no other way out than to shoot Smargin; she herself is gunned down by other anarchists. The Chekists arrive and arrest Markov and his people. Marussja dies in Aljoscha's arms. She is buried in a grave high above the river. It is adorned with a red star with her name on it. Aljoscha also writes in a pen: “Employees of the Cheka”.
criticism
The lexicon of international film was not very enthusiastic: "Developed as politically tendentious agit-prop cinema without any staging ambition."
Remarks
The film was in August 1964 from cinemas of the GDR listed. German synchronization: DEFA-Synchron, Atelier Weimar , dialog: Wolfgang Krüger, director: Helmut Brandis , editor: Christel Schäfgen, sound: Jürgen Krzywinski, distributor: VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb.
literature
- Ben Nova: Heroes of the Cheka , Progress Film Program 84/64, Berlin 1964.
Web links
- Heroes of the Cheka in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Movie poster of the German version on Ost-Film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heroes of the Cheka. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .