Chess in Movies

The Luzhin Defence is the only film i watched that has a plot about chess . its been more than 10 years since i watched it so i cant vouch for it now but from what i can remember it was a good film. at least john turturro's acting was top-notch (not a surprise though)

but im sure in a topic like  "chess in movies"   this film deserves a better place than some other random action movies which only include a scene with a chessboard

The Luzhin Defence is what happens when you give a woman director the opportunity to make a movie about chess.  She turns it into a chick flick and chess goes down the toilet.

Lets cut to the chase---the last 10 or 15 mins of the movie. The woman's husband is playing for the world championship. He dies during the match (actually, he commits suicide). The game is over right---wrong. They adjourn the game and bury the dead husband and the wife comes back and continues the game for her dead husband.  You know I can suspend my sense of disbelief when I see a Christmas angel come back to earth and give Jimmy Stewart a helping hand over the hard times he was facing.  In fact I thought it was a great movie!  But a woman standing in for her dead husband in a world championship game is a mountain to climb which I cant do.

So the woman plays on for her dead husband---and how she plays!  She has her husbands notes in her left hand and she makes the moves with her right hand. The woman is reading her dead husbands notes at the board in a championship game?

I can believe Alan Ladd  (5'4" and 135 lbs) going into a saloon in the old west and clearing out a bunch of brutes (all 6' 200 pounders) as he did in Shane with his bare fist but I cant believe The Luzhin Defence. The lady is sitting at the board reading her husbands notes and she is kicking her opponents ass.  Her opponent is world class and he is getting his ass handed to him on a platter. The game ends and the wife becomes Champion of the world and she cant tell a bishop from a knight.

I am going to stick to movies like The Wizard of Oz or Back to the Future or even West Side Story where the tough gangs of NY do a little dance whenever they run into each other---hell, I even believed that!  But the loosin defence was a mountain I couldnt climb.

There was a COLUMBO episode starring Peter Falk ' The plot was centered on 2 chess champions , 1 killed the other because of conceit and fear of losing , did COLUMBO solve the case ? you bet your sweet bippy he did . the murder was solved because of 1 move committed by the conceited killer .

Froghollow, I like the cut of your jib!

Silverado has a Chess game in it. You only see two moves. John Cleese plays one move, looks to his deputy, and then sighs and turns the board around to make the next move. They use a Lewis Chess set, but I think they got the rooks and the bishops mixed up.

well first of all , the movie is an adaptation of the book The Defence written by  Vladimir Nabokov , so you cant blame the plot on the director

secondly , the ending was about how luzhin could forsee the paths his opponent would likely follow . And dont forget Luzhin is an autistic genius , a -rain man- kind of genius , so i dont think its the most unbelievable thing you could see in a film how he could manage to calculate it all . well , thats my opinion ofcourse but i find it more likely than a christmas angel coming down to earth

 Well, gulya, its obvious you know nothing about the book or its author---so I'm going to give you a little background. Nabakov was a chess player---he played chess! He never wrote such garbage that was in that movie. He hung out with chess players---he actually knew Bardeleben, who jumped out of a high rise hotel in Berlin (cherchez le femme). It was Bardeleben who gave him the idea for Luzhin!

Gulya, dont blame Nabakov for the bullshit the lady director put in the movie. This is why the movie did so poorly at the box office.  People who didnt know chess---didnt understand it. And, people who did know chess ---didnt understand it.

Gulya, you say " thats my opinion ofcourse but i find it more likely than a christmas angel coming down to earth."

Well the Jimmy Stewart movie "Its a Great Life" is consistently ranked as one of the top movies of all time. Billions of people have seen it and believe it. It was made 65 years ago and people still watch it. Nobody watches Luzhin---that was a friggin loser of the first magnitude!!!!!  It was forgotten the day after it was made!

Pull your head out Gulya and start talking like a chess player.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038733/

Stairway to Heaven has a chess theme, but the plot isn't focused on chess. Another member here pointed it out to me, and I enjoyed watching it.

His deputy"s name was Wanda ( sound a bit fishy ? ) 

N-n-n-n-not R-r-r-really.

i enjoyed the luzhin defence. more for chess players than non chess players.

is the ending in the luzhin defence supposed be a adjournment or something like that.?

The Double O kid was a pretty crap movie with Brigitte Neilsen but it had an animated chess scene or two in it.

I love the chess scene in History of the World, Part I.

its true that i didnt read the book ,nor did i know the ending was changed by the director , and as i said at the beginning ; i cant vouch for the film because i watched it 10 years ago

But ; i fail to understand the reason why you call it garbage . the ending remained in my mind as a praise to the guys genius , not as a -wifey saved the day- situation . are you that annoyed at her being allowed to play a championship match  ? i didnt even pay attention to that . its a movie , just assume that both the federation and the opponent were in their most emotional state that day and they just happened to approve it ... and move on

 i just think you are overreacting ,thats all im trying to say

In the movie "The Thief Who Came to Dinner" Ryan O'Neal is playing a burglar who play a "correspondence" chess game with the police, leaving a chess piece and a move (played by a computer) after every robbery.

Happens sometimes with elected offices, oddly enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widow%27s_succession

 Gulya, When a player dies at the chess board in a championship match---the game is over, positively and absolutely. You die---you lose.

In any tournament if you die when playing a game ---you lose. Its always been that way---it will always be that way.

Lets forgo that and say---its a movie. lets pretend its Alice in Wonderland chess and that if you die, you dont lose. The game is adjourned and you are buried. Your wife continues the game using your notes. Now your wife doesnt play chess---she dislikes chess very much but she has your notes. She probably doesn't read chess notation  but thats OK---its only a movie. She ends up winning the championship and hey, This is better than a Rocky movie. This is better than professional wrestling!

I can hardly wait for Luzhin II,  its been 12 years. If its coming it ought to be here by now.

some more:

Hatley High (2003) - Imdb: 6.0

Dangerous Moves (1984) - Imdb: 6.5

La Partie d'echecs (1994) - Imdb: 6.4

Final Move (2006) - Imdb: 3.4

The Seventh Seal (1957) - Imdb: 8.4

The Creatures (1966) - Imdb: 6.7

Uncovered (1995) - Imdb: 5.8

Knight Moves (1992) - Imdb: 5.9

The Chess Players (1977) - Imdb: 7.4

There are also several russian ones, about Alekhine, Korchnoi, Capablanca and some others, but without translation unfortunately