Kollezhsky Registrator on AllMovie

Originally released in 1925 as Kollezhky Registrator, the Russian The Station Master was based on a novel by Alexander Pushkin. I. M. Moskvin, who co-directed the film, is cast as an aging village stationmaster whose daughter Dunia (V. S. Malinovskya) is seduced and abducted by an aristocratic army officer. The old man leaves his post to trudge through the snow after his daughter, who has been spirited off to St. Petersburg for additional outrages. As the months turn into years, the stationmaster slowly loses his mind, unable to comprehend a society that allows its elite to do their worst to those less fortunate. When his daughter finally makes an unexpected reappearance, the stationmaster rushes out into a storm to welcome her back -- and promptly drops dead of heart failure. According to contemporary critics, American viewers tended to react to the most dramatic moments in The Station Master with derisive laughter but greeted the comedy-relief scenes with stony silence.