Behind the scenes of the film "The One": How the plot became prophetic for Vladimir Vysotsky and Valery Zolotukhin

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

45 years ago, in 1976, the film "The Only One" by Joseph Kheifits was released. An uncomplicated, at first glance, story of love, infidelity and forgiveness was so fond of the audience that the film became one of the leaders in distribution, gathering 32.5 million people at the cinema screens. The main roles were played by Elena Proklova, Valery Zolotukhin and Vladimir Vysotsky. In the film, the actors' characters were the main competitors, fighting for the heart of one woman, and soon after filming, the actors themselves became competitors in real life …

The script of the film was created on the basis of the story of Pavel Nilin about two spouses, who were separated by the infidelity of their wife and the hastily decision of the husband to divorce. The story was published in 1972 and made such a sensation among readers that a gramophone record with its audio version performed by Sergei Yursky was soon released. When the director Joseph Kheifits read this story, he was immediately eager to bring this story to life on the screen. She was about exactly what always interested him most of all - about the secret life of the human soul and about the mysteries of love.

Officials from the State Committee for Cinematography did not share the director's enthusiasm - they were outraged by the story of the betrayal of a married woman, because this undermined the foundations of the Soviet family. If a lesser-known director had come to them with such an application, the audience would most likely never have seen this film. But Joseph Kheifits by that time was a laureate of the Stalin Prize and was a member of the galaxy of luminaries of Soviet cinema, and thanks to his authority he obtained permission to shoot.

In the main male role - the driver Kolya Kasatkin - the director initially saw only Valery Zolotukhin, because, in his opinion, he ideally fit into the image of a simple hard worker, "a man from the crowd" whom love changes and transforms, it fills his life with meaning - and with this destroys it. Zolotukhin was approved immediately, but the director could not find the actress for the main female role - Kolya's wife, Tanyusha the waitress - for a very long time. Among the actresses who took part in the audition was the beautiful Natalya Bogunova, the star of "Big Change", with her participation they even filmed several scenes. But then the artists of the Moscow Art Theater came to Leningrad on tour, and when Kheifits saw 22-year-old Elena Proklova on the stage, he realized that his Tanyusha should be just like that.

Elena Proklova acted in films from the age of 12, by that time she had managed to play the main roles in the films "They Call, Open the Door", "The Snow Queen", "Adolescent Age", "Burn, Burn, My Star", but Tanya "Became her first" adult "role, played after graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School. Later, the actress called this work one of her most beloved and closest ones.

In the role of a village womanizer-lovebird who seduced the married Tanyusha, viewers were supposed to see Alexei Batalov, favorite actor Joseph Kheifits, but shortly before filming began, the director accidentally met with Vladimir Vysotsky. They have already worked together in the film Bad Good Man, the film adaptation of Chekhov's Duel. Kheifits later recalled: "".

Later, at creative meetings with the audience, Vysotsky said that for the first time he played in this film a completely strange and unusual role for him as a "shabby seducer."Vysotsky invented many details of the image himself - torn off buttons on his jacket, sandals stained with mud, a torn sock, a string bag with a bottle of kefir and a pack of tea. In order for the suede jacket specially made for him at the Model House to look like it was good 10 years ago, it was rubbed with sand and mud for several days. The result is a very bright and unusual image - at the same time courageous and pathetic. Kheifits repeated Proklova: "".

Although the role was not the main one, Vysotsky treated her very responsibly. Many directors complained that he could disrupt the shooting, but Kheifits said the opposite: the artist did everything possible and impossible to make them take place. At the time of filming in "The One", Vysotsky had such a tight schedule of tours and concerts that he could find time only for a few hours of shooting. Many scenes with his partners were filmed without him, and then later his close-ups were filmed and edited. In Zaporozhye, where the main material of the film was filmed, he could not come, but he took part in the pavilion filming in Leningrad.

Once, on the only day free from performance and rehearsal, before leaving for a foreign tour, he was supposed to fly from Moscow to Leningrad on the morning plane. With difficulty on this day, all the actors were gathered for an important shooting. And then a blizzard began, and Leningrad did not accept aircraft. And suddenly Vysotsky burst into the pavilion, putting on a suit on the go: ""

Most of the actors involved in the film did not know Vysotsky before, but Valery Zolotukhin had known him for a long time. Moreover, they performed together on the stage of the Taganka Theater, starred in several films and were friends for many years. In 1970, filling out a questionnaire, to the question "Who is your friend?" Vysotsky replied: "Valery Zolotukhin." However, shortly before the premiere of The One, the friendship between the artists cracked. The bone of contention was the role of Hamlet, which was for Vysotsky the most significant in the Taganka Theater. But in December 1975 Zolotukhin got the same role in the second cast. Vysotsky then often went abroad, missed rehearsals, and director Yuri Lyubimov decided to play it safe in this way. As a result, Hamlet was nevertheless played by Vysotsky, but the fact that Zolotukhin gave his consent to a replacement hurt his friend very much - he said that he himself would never agree to replace a friend, especially knowing how important the role was for him.

The plot of the film "The Only One" became prophetic for the actors: they became competitors not only on the screen, but also in real life, although behind the scenes they fought not for the love of a woman, but for the love of millions of viewers, and their jealousy was creative. After that, the relationship between them soured, but this conflict was too inflated and exaggerated later, which had unpleasant consequences for Zolotukhin: What actually caused the quarrel between Vladimir Vysotsky and Valery Zolotukhin.