Pitfalls (1927)

Directed by Abram Room; script by Victor Shklovsky; camera by Dmitry Feldman and Boris Epstein.

This now lost work was one of the first firms directed by Abram Room (1897–1973) and is based on a short story by a worker-correspondent called A. Dmitriyev.

The action takes place at a glass factory. After the birth of their child, a young family splits up. They are reunited after the wife plays the part of an abandoned woman in an amateur theatrical performance. Her husband is in the audience and is led to repentance by the inscription “down with pitfalls on the path to a new way of life.” The comparison of domestic problems with fragile glass and the concluding phrase “that’s the way glass is made” are the naïve allegories of the film.