The Queen of Spades (Russian: «Пиковая дама», romanized: Pikovaya dama) is a 1960 film adaptation of Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades, based on the 1834 Aleksandr Pushkin short story of the same name, and directed by Roman Tikhomirov. The film, set in the 1820s, follows a man named Hermann, who has just returned from army service to Moscow. At the beginning of the film, he is in love with the beautiful young Liza - who is engaged to another - but soon he becomes fatally obsessed with learning the secret to a winning card combination from Liza's grandmother, the Countess.