Pudovkin – shortly to become one of Soviet silent cinema’s most important filmmakers – made this short comedy during a break in the shooting of his first feature, Mekhanika golovnogo mozga (Mechanics of the Brain, 1926), a documentary about Pavlov. Containing “a fund of simple satire and movie wit” (Jay Leyda), Shakhmatnaya goryachka notably utilizes the famous technique attributed to Pudovkin’s mentor Lev Kuleshov to weave genuine footage of the International Chess Championship held in Moscow in November 1925 into its fictional story. The plot is cen­tred on Vladimir Fogel’s Keaton-esque protagonist, whose obsession with the game drives a wedge between him and his fiancée (played by Pudovkin’s re­al-life wife, Anna Zemtsova), only for the couple to be reunited in the end after she too succumbs to chess fever. Experts consider Ukrainian co-director Mykola Shpykovskyi the real mastermind behind Shakhmatnaya goryachka due to its closer affinity to his later satirical com­edies. Irrespective of its true authorship, the film is a delight, full of visual gags that are just as fresh and funny today as 100 years ago.

Oliver Hanley