Alexander Popov (film)

Alexander Popov (Александр Попов) is a 1949 biographical drama film directed by Herbert Rappaport about the life and work of Alexander Stepanovich Popov, who was a notable physicist and electrical engineer and an early developer of radio communication.

Synopsis
In the process of scientific search the talent and the power of observation of Popov allowed him to complete a number of unique discoveries. The wireless telegraph invented by him was used for the first time in the heaviest conditions of the polar north, for rescuing people on an ice floe.

Role as propaganda film
Along with Grigori Roshal's Ivan Pavlov, which came out that same year, Alexander Popov was among the first in a series of patriotic biographical films produced in the Soviet Union which aimed to prove the superiority of Russian and Soviet science and art over that of the West.

The films acknowledges the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, but makes no mention of Nikola Tesla, whose work paved the way for Popov's inventions. This obscuring of American achievements is in line with other Russian Cold War-era films.

Cast

 * Nikolay Cherkasov as Aleksandr Stepanovich Popov
 * Aleksandr Borisov as Rybkin
 * Konstantin Skorobogatov as Admiral Makarov
 * Ilya Sudakov as Mendeleyev
 * Yuriy Tolubeev as Petrushevsky
 * Vladimir Chestnokov as Lyuboslavsky
 * Kseniya Blagoveshchenskaya as Raisa Alekseevna
 * Leonid Vivyen as Tyrtov
 * Bruno Freindlikh as Marconi
 * Osip Abdulov as Isaacs

Awards
In 1951, Cherkasov, Skorobogatov, Freindlich, and Borisov received the Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree for their work on Alexander Popov.