Zigzag of Success

A photography studio in a provincial town. The manager is worried about missing his targets, Alevtina at the front desk wants to get married, and Oreshnikov the photographer dreams of a good camera. One day Oreshnikov takes twenty roubles from the workplace mutual fund, buys a lottery bond, and wins ten thousand. He wants the money for himself. His colleagues object: the money that bought the bond was common, so the winnings are common too. As the new year approaches, nobody in the studio is speaking to anybody. Eldar Ryazanov directs the Soviet comedy; eighty-eight minutes, with Yevgeny Leonov as Oreshnikov and Yevgeny Yevstigneyev in the cast. It was shot in black and white. Ryazanov was the most watched comedy director in Soviet cinema; the subject here is not a crime but what people do to each other once money is involved.