Kapler, Aleksei Iakovlevich

Born Sept. 28 (Oct. 11), 1904, in Kiev. Soviet screenwriter. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1969).

Kapler became an actor in 1919, and in 1920, with S. I. Iut-kevich and G. M. Kozintsev, he founded the Harlequin Theater in Kiev. He began working in motion pictures in 1926; he acted in several films (The Overcoat, for example). In 1929–30 he directed cultural films (movies that popularized various branches of science and technology) based on his own screenplays.

Kapler’s first screenplays for feature films were The Three Comrades (1935, with T. S. Zlatogorova) and The Miners (1937). Two films based on Kapler’s screenplays—Lenin in October (1937) and Lenin in 1918 (1939, with T. S. Zlatogorova)— became widely known and began the trend of representing V. I. Lenin in films (the role of Lenin was performed by B. V. Shchukin). His scripts devoted to the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Patriotic War include She Defends the Fatherland (1943); Kotovskii (1943); The First Joys (1956) and The Extraordinary Summer (1957), both based on the novels by K. A. Fedin; and Two Lives (1962).

Kapler was also the screenwriter of Behind the Department Store Window (1956), The Striped Voyage (1961, with V. Konetskii), The Amphibian Man (1962, based the novel by A. P. Beliaev), I Accept the Battle (1966), and the television movie Faith, Hope and Charity (1972). He taught at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography. Kapler was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1941), the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and other medals.