Happiness (1935 film)

{{about|the Soviet film|the French film|Le Bonheur (1934 film)}}

{{Infobox film

|name = Happiness

|image =Счастье. (1934).webm

|caption =Happiness

|director = Aleksandr Medvedkin

|producer =

|writer = Aleksandr Medvedkin

|starring = Pyotr Zinovyev
Yelena Yegorova

|distributor =

|released = {{Film date|1935|03|15}}

|country = Soviet Union

|runtime = 99 minutes
West German TV cut: 66 minutes

|language = Silent film
Russian intertitles

|budget =

}}

Happiness ({{langx|ru|Счастье|Schastye}}) is a 1935 silent satirical slapstick (or rather lubok{{cite web|url=http://www.russkoekino.ru/books/ruskino/ruskino-0029.shtml |title=Художественный фильм "Счастье" |publisher=Russkoekino.ru |date= |accessdate=2012-09-22}}) comedy set in the Russian Empire before the October Revolution and in the Soviet Union at the time of the collectivization. Medvedkin's original title was The Snatchers or The Possessors (Стяжатели).Emma Widdis. Alexander Medvedkin. I.B.Tauris, 2005. {{ISBN|9781850434054}}. Pages 36, 49.

The original print featured an experimental color sequence illustrating a poor peasant's dreams of becoming a king. It was the first color production of the Mosfilm studio. According to Medvedkin, "At that time the peasant could not dream of anything multicoloured of beautiful. His dream was limited, and in that the technology helped". The sequence was discarded on account of its poor technical quality and is apparently lost.

Unnoticed on its release, Happiness became well known in the 1960s among film scholars.{{cite web|url=http://www.silentsaregolden.com/debartoloreviews/rdbhappiness.html |title=Happiness |publisher=Silentsaregolden.com |date= |accessdate=2012-09-22}} It was especially championed by Chris Marker who included some excerpts from Happiness in his 1992 documentary The Last Bolshevik.