Dancer Zoia Karabanova and her occasional lover, millionaire Iona Talanov dispute over whether youth and beauty are more important than wealth. They agree to a wager, and Talanov offers Yuri Yurovsky a position. For two years of his time, Yurovsky will live like a millionaire.. He dresses the young man in fine clothes, and takes him on a journey around the world, instructing him on how a rich man behaves. When they return, Miss Karabanova chooses the younger man, but the wager is not over.
It's a Russian version of Pygmalion, under the direction of Alexandre Volkhoff. It's his last movie in Russia for some time; he soon would become a director in Germany and France, one of the Russian emigrees who worked with Mouzhoukin and that crowd. Here he seems very obvious and heavy-handed in his themes, with Talanov a particularly Mephistophelean character, intent on wrecking lives, or souls perhaps. Still, the back-and-forth between the three principals is interesting to watch.
It's a Russian version of Pygmalion, under the direction of Alexandre Volkhoff. It's his last movie in Russia for some time; he soon would become a director in Germany and France, one of the Russian emigrees who worked with Mouzhoukin and that crowd. Here he seems very obvious and heavy-handed in his themes, with Talanov a particularly Mephistophelean character, intent on wrecking lives, or souls perhaps. Still, the back-and-forth between the three principals is interesting to watch.