Gardes-Marines-III (film)

Gardes-Marines-III
Directed by	Svetlana Druzhinina
Written by	Yuri Nagibin Svetlana Druzhinina Nina Sorotokina
Starring	Dmitry Kharatyan Mikhail Mamaev Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev Lyudmila Gurchenko Kristina Orbakaitė
Music by	Victor Lebedev
Cinematography	Anatoly Mukasei
Production company	Mosfilm
Release date	1992
Running time	107 min.
Country	USSR Russia Germany
Language	Russian

Gardes-Marines-III or (Russian: Гардемарины-III, translit. Gardemariny III) is a 1992 Soviet two-series television movie (mini-series), the third of a series of films about Russian Gardes-Marines of the 18th century, directed by Svetlana Druzhinina.

...1757 year. In Europe the smell of gunpowder grows more noticeable. Two militant alliances: England and Prussia on one side, and Austria, France and Russia on the other, are engaged in the bloody Seven Years' War.

Life separated the gardes-marines friends. Alexander Belov serves in Alaska, and Nikita Olenev – at the imperial court. Only Aleksei Korsak became captain of a ship. During a trip to Venice, Korsak rescues a shipwrecked man. The man is Baron von Brockdorf who serves in the Russian court, but in fact is a spy of King Frederick the Great, and also the lover of his wife, Prussian Queen Elizabeth-Christina. Brockdorf is arrested, but manages to escape, and now along with unsuspecting Korsak, he sails on a ship to Venice where the loving queen awaits him. In addition Duchess Joanna is located there, mother of Catherine. Several years ago on the orders of Bestuzhev, the duchess was banished from Russia for being a Prussian spy, but now she continues to faithfully serve Friedrich.

At this very time Nikita Olenev and his friend Pavel Gorin are traveling from distant Russia to Venice. Olenev, in love with Princess Fiquet from the moment of their acquaintance, performs a seemingly innocuous order of the Grand Duchess to hand over a box with jewellery to the Prussian queen. But in reality there is a hidden encrypted message in the box for Friedrich with the information that Empress Elizabeth is seriously ill, and the field-marshal Apraksin, commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in East Prussia, will only simulate the fighting, without joining the decisive battle with the Prussians. Pleased with this message, Joanna and Brockdorff write a reply message to Catherine, which again Nikita Olenev, the involuntary "courier" of Prussian espionage, must convey.

When the duchess learns that Brockdorf arrived in Venice on Korsak's ship, she decides to be safe and destroy Korsak. The attempt fails, but the young Russian captain is accused of murder and imprisoned. With the help of Olenev and Gorin, as well as vagrant Venetian artists, they manage to abduct Korsak from prison, and moreover, friends manage to capture Brockdorff and urgently leave for Russia. On the road the midshipmen find an encrypted letter for Catherine, and Brockdorf manages to break away and escape.