Russia Cinema The Overcoat (1926)

The Overcoat (1926)

Directed by Grigory Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg; script by Yury Tynyanov; camera by Andrei Moskvin; movie poster by N. N. Sedov and Mikhail Veksler.

This unsurviving film is based on two short stories by Nikolai GogolThe Overcoat and Nevsky Prospekt.

Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, a clerk in the Russian civil service, sees a beautiful woman on Nevsky Prospekt. He follows her, but she disappears into one of the doorways. Bashmachkin is haunted by this vision, but his hopes are dashed when the object of his dreams turns out to be a fallen woman. He attempts to brighten up his dull and unhappy life by ordering a new overcoat. One night, going home from a party, he is attacked by robbers, who steal his overcoat. The clerk traipses round various government offices seeking justice, but is spurned everywhere. Bashmachkin returns home, suffers all night from nightmares and dies the next morning.

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