Plot synopsis

Based on the play of the same name by A.N. Ostrovsky.
The first film-play. Production of the State Academic Maly Theater (stage director - B. Nikolsky; art - K. Yuon; chief director of the theater - K. Zubov).
The imperious old woman Mavra Tarasovna, the mother of the Moscow merchant Amos Panfilovich Baraboshev, is looking for a groom-general for her granddaughter Polyxena. But the girl loves the bailiff Platon Zybkin, an honest and poor guy who owes the owner two hundred rubles. Plato faces a debt prison. Through the efforts of the nanny Polyxena, who decided to help the lovers, a new watchman appears in the house - a retired non-commissioned officer Sila Erofeevich Groznov, a former lover of Mavra Tarasovna. Frightened that the old sins will become known to everyone, the old woman satisfies Groznov's requirements - she destroys Plato's bill and allows her granddaughter to marry him.