Ivan Rybakov

The innkeeper Bessudny and his wife Eugenia are evil and greedy people. And their niece, the modest and decent Annushka, loves the landowner Milovidov. However, the envious Eugenia tries in every possible way to prevent her personal happiness.

Once upon a time, young scientists Kalitin and Danilov were friends, but a quarrel separated them. The circumstances of the quarrel remained unclear to everyone until the end. But everyone thought they were right. Years have passed. Professor Kalitin’s son, working under his leadership, moves to the institute headed by Danilov. Kalitin learns about this decision of Igor on the day of the arrival of his friend and colleague Vasin. On this occasion, old friends gather at the professor’s house, including Luzgin, Kalitin’s boss. Reflections on his life help the professor understand his son’s choice, oppose the unprincipled careerist Luzgin and make peace with Danilov.

The movie tells about the life of Soviet scientists. Professor Dobrotvorsky, together with his colleague Losev, is on his way to completing a scientific work of great importance in medicine. Professor Dobrotvorsky's friend Academician Vereisky learns from a foreign journal that important data about this work has fallen into the hands of American businessmen.

In the focus of the film is the fate of Varvara Basova, whose painfully soulless, philistine-gray existence, devoid of ideals and moral content. Relevant today, the picture sounds like a verdict to all who are mired in vulgarity, who have exchanged life for petty pleasures, profit, empty philosophizing.

At the amateur talent show the boy, accompanying himself on the accordion, sings a song about Moscow... The plot of the movie is based on the story of the director of the school about how this accordion, once belonging to a cadre worker who died during a demonstration in 1905, has been in many hands before it got to the guys.

In an Eastern European country, a strong political struggle breaks out over the possibility of accepting aid from the Marshall Plan or signing a cooperation treaty with the Soviet Union.

Memories of the old Baltic sailor who participated in a revolution and a few wars...

About the first builders of the city of Komsomolsk and their labor.