The Inspector-General

Khlestakov is a young, flamboyant crook. He is broke. He turns up in a small Russian town. The local authorities there are expecting an inspector. The one they await is to come from the capital, St Petersburg, undercover. Khlestakov is taken for that inspector. He turns the situation to his own advantage at once. He takes bribes from the governor and flirts with both the governor’s wife and his daughter. He works the corruption and hypocrisy of the local authorities for all it is worth. In the end the real inspector arrives. Igor Gorbachyov is in the lead, with Yuriy Tolubeev and Tamara Nosova also in the cast, in Vladimir Petrov’s Soviet film of 1952.