The Case of the Three Million

A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

From his early silent works, the great Russian film director, Herr Yakov Protazanov, made literary adaptations from equally great Russian writers, as is the case with "Chiny I Lyudi" ( Ranks And People ) (1929) in which three short stories by Chekhov, "Anna On The Neck", "Death Of A Petty Official" and "Chameleon" were assembled for the silent screen.

After the death of Count Chambery his wife and daughter were left without means of subsistence. Seeing no other way out, a young woman settles maid in the house of Baroness Angers.

The priests, stock market officials, and police conspire to squeeze income out of pilgrims come to see relics of a Christ like figure. A pair of con men try to pass of a resurrected saint.

While hosting a game of cards one night, Narumov tells his friends a story about his grandmother, a Countess. As a young woman, she had once incurred an enormous gambling debt, which she was able to erase by learning a secret that guaranteed that she could win by playing her cards in a certain order. One of Narumov's friends, Hermann, has never gambled, but he is intrigued by the story about the Countess and her secret. He soon becomes obsessed with learning this secret from her, and he starts by courting her young ward Lizaveta, hoping to use her to gain access to the Countess.

The story of Prince Stepán Kasátsky discovering his fiancée was the mistress of the Czar, so he then becomes a monk.

Smart Man Nassredin easily penetrates into Bukhara Emir inner circle posing as Wise Man from Damascus. He becomes Emir trusted advisor, and even convinces the tyrant to relax the rule and release a lot of political prisoners (because stars favor this arrangement).

A great stage performer falls ill and loses her voice and beauty, and she and her admirer's lives crumble because of it.

A young woman sharpshooter fighting with the Reds in Turkestan misses her forty-first victim, a handsome White lieutenant, and ends up escorting him, by boat, into captivity across the Aral Sea. A storm strands the two on an island.

A group of peasants comes to see Leo Tolstoy and his wife, the Countess, to request some land. Tolstoy must explain to them that it is his wife who has authority over their land-holdings, and she will not help them. Stung by their negative reaction to him, Tolstoy becomes increasingly preoccupied with the problems of the poor. This leads to a number of conflicts with his wife, and then to a deep despondency, as the noted writer continues vainly to search for answers to the sufferings he sees around him.

The vain station master of a Russian train station out in the sticks has a quarrel with an old peasant woman and has her thrown in jail. The local party youth organisation finally manage to get her released, after having to cut through lots of red tape.

The secret police agent finds that factory director wife is counterrevolutionary but dies from the heart attack. The director reads the diary of an agent and turns his wife to police.

Based on Aleksey Tolstoy's piece of the same name.