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Late for a Date

1936 film by Mikhail Verner

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ4156476 ↗
Source-derived summary

Late for a Date (Russian: Девушка спешит на свидание, romanized: Devushka speshit na svidanie; literally Girl in a hurry for a date) is a Soviet comedy film directed by Mikhail Verner. A new print was issued in 1987, completely redubbed.

Plot

Moscow, 1936. Leonid Sergeyevich Fyodorov, a modest and intellectual professor, and Nikolai Nikolayevich Gurov, a resourceful cobbler employed by "Moskooppromsoyuza" (referred to later in the film as "Moskunstkozhemobuv"), leave their wives behind in Moscow and travel to the resort town of Yessentuki. Despite being strangers, they share an unexpected connection: both have forgotten their passports. Their wives head to the post office to send the passports, but the postal worker, distracted by a phone conversation about a date, accidentally switches the packages. Gurov receives Fyodorov’s passport, and Fyodorov ends up with Gurov’s.

The passport mix-up sparks a cascade of comedic misunderstandings as the two men navigate life at the resort under false identities. Fyodorov, a reserved academic, finds himself mistaken for a charming cobbler, while Gurov, a crafty ladies' man, is perceived as a dignified professor. Their attempts to adapt to these mistaken identities result in a series of humorous and increasingly chaotic situations.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Late for a Date” is 1936 film by Mikhail Verner. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Late, Date and film, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987, 1936—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936-08-23. For this dossier, Late, Date and film is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1936 film by Mikhail Verner” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4156476. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 1936.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Late for a Date”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Late for a Date primary sources, Late for a Date archive and Late research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Late for a Date”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Late for a Date” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.