The Queen of Spades (1960 film)

The Queen of Spades (Russian: «Пиковая дама», romanized: Pikovaya dama) is a 1960 film adaptation of Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades, based on the 1834 Aleksandr Pushkin short story of the same name, and directed by Roman Tikhomirov.

The film, set in the 1820s, follows a man named Hermann, who has just returned from army service to Moscow. At the beginning of the film, he is in love with the beautiful young Liza - who is engaged to another - but soon he becomes fatally obsessed with learning the secret to a winning card combination from Liza's grandmother, the Countess.

The operatic parts were performed by Zurab Andzhaparidze, Tamara Milashkina, and Yevgeny Kibkalo.

For this film Oleg Strizhenov received the Aleksandr Pushkin's Big Gold Medal and the prize of the Russian Musical Fund of Irina Arkhipova "for the brilliant realization of the figure of Hermann in the film Queen of Spades".