Motion Picture Director. His reputation rests on a single film, "Bed and Sofa" (1927), a surprisingly adult (for its time) study of a love triangle that results from Moscow's housing shortage. Its perceptive observations and delicate balance of comedy and drama have made it a classic of Soviet silent cinema. He also directed the USSR's first talkie, the documentary "The Five Year Plan" (1930). Abram Matveyevich Room was born in what is now Vilnius, Lithuania, of Jewish descent. He studied medicine and served as a Red Army doctor during the Russian Civil War. In 1923 he joined Meyerhold's Theatre of the Revolution as an actor and made his film directing debut with "The Vodka Chase" (1924). The honest, sensitively handled "Bed and Sofa" was an anomaly in Room's long career, which was cautiously spent making escapist fare and propaganda features. During the unpredictable final years of Stalin's rule (1950 to 1953) he played it even safer by filming stage productions. His other credits include "Traitor" (1926), "Ruts" (1928), "Criminals" (1933), "Squadron No. 5" (1939), "Invasion" (1945), "School for Scandal" (1952), "The Garnet Bracelet" (1965), "Belated Flowers" (1972), and "The Untimely Man" (1973).
Motion Picture Director. His reputation rests on a single film, "Bed and Sofa" (1927), a surprisingly adult (for its time) study of a love triangle that results from Moscow's housing shortage. Its perceptive observations and delicate balance of comedy and drama have made it a classic of Soviet silent cinema. He also directed the USSR's first talkie, the documentary "The Five Year Plan" (1930). Abram Matveyevich Room was born in what is now Vilnius, Lithuania, of Jewish descent. He studied medicine and served as a Red Army doctor during the Russian Civil War. In 1923 he joined Meyerhold's Theatre of the Revolution as an actor and made his film directing debut with "The Vodka Chase" (1924). The honest, sensitively handled "Bed and Sofa" was an anomaly in Room's long career, which was cautiously spent making escapist fare and propaganda features. During the unpredictable final years of Stalin's rule (1950 to 1953) he played it even safer by filming stage productions. His other credits include "Traitor" (1926), "Ruts" (1928), "Criminals" (1933), "Squadron No. 5" (1939), "Invasion" (1945), "School for Scandal" (1952), "The Garnet Bracelet" (1965), "Belated Flowers" (1972), and "The Untimely Man" (1973).
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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