The film's Russian title is Tretya Meshchanskaya (Third Meschanskaya), the name of a then actual Moscow Street. The word "meschantsvo" however had come to be associated with petty-bourgeois vulgarianism and materialism - reflected in the muddle of ornaments and possessions in the apartment.
Abortion was legalized for the first time in any European country in 1920 in Russia due to the rise in homeless and abandoned children after the Russian Revolution.
Both male lead actors died tragically a few years after the film was made. Nikolai Batalov (Kolya the husband) died at 37 from a long bout with tuberculosis. Vladimir Fogel (Volodya) committed suicide at 27.
Among the numerous images adorning the walls of the flat, the tapestry showing bears next to the bed is a reproduction of Morning in a Pine Forest (1889), a popular painting by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky.
In 1996, Off-Broadway, the Vinyard Theatre presented "Bed and Sofa: A Silent Movie Opera," with Libretto by Laurence Klavan, Music by Polly Pen and Direction by Andre Ernotte.
The opera reproduces the plot of the original movie, as an opera. Some of the story plays out silently, giving the feeling that the audience is watching a silent movie. A narrator injects humorous transitions between some scenes, acting as a vocal title card.
This opera was performed in Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center of the Performing Arts in September, 2015.
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