"Hands on the Blanket!"

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

36 years ago, in August 1982, the premiere of the film I Can't Say Goodbye took place, which attracted more than 34 million viewers in cinemas. Many watched it several times, sincerely empathizing with the drama shown on the big screen, unaware that the fate of the actors was even more dramatic. But that was years later, and the shooting took place in a romantic atmosphere, which disposed the young hero to flirt, and made the director pretty nervous …

Nobody expected Boris Durov, the director of the first Soviet action movie Pirates of the XX century, to release a melodrama, but he himself explained his decision by the fact that he again decided to make a film about the power of good, which does not have to be “with fists”, as in Pirates of the XX century. century ":" ".

In "Pirates" the main role was played by the idol of Soviet women Nikolai Eremenko, and Durov thought about inviting him to the role of the handsome Sergei Vatagin, who won the heart of Lida Tenyakova. However, he came to the decision that all the main characters should still be played by little-known actors. The assistants were given the task of finding the type of young Urbansky. For this, a casting was organized among students of theatrical universities. When it was Sergei Varchuk's turn, the director at first did not even look up at him, until he asked the standard question about whether he liked the script. The young actor puzzled him with his audacity and self-confidence. At first, he said that he did not like everything in the script, and then said that his character reminds him of the king of a provincial dance floor. The director admitted that he even had a working title for the script, to which the actor replied: "". And got the role.

The first stage of preparation for filming for Varchuk was frequent visits to the Institute of Traumatology, where for a month he communicated with patients in wheelchairs, studying their mental and physical condition - this was necessary in order to play the hero paralyzed after the injury received as plausibly as possible. He believed that the result would not be convincing if he did not actually feel physical pain, and for this the actor wore a tight corset that restricts his movements.

However, the real test for the actor was not even a corset that prevented him from breathing and moving, but control over his own emotions. Years later, he recalls with a smile that he could hardly restrain himself in bed scenes with his partner - actress Tatyana Parkina, who seemed very attractive to him. Although these scenes can be called “bed” only in the sense that they were actually filmed in bed, otherwise everything was as chaste as possible and was left “out of brackets”. The actor now and then strove to hug his partner under the covers, arguing that the audience must believe that they are a married couple. The actress was embarrassed by this, because she had recently got married and came to the shooting with her husband, and the director had to cool the ardor of Varchuk by constant shouts: "You got your hand on!" Then the actor went for another trick: wishing to prolong these pleasant moments, he gave a signal to the operator, and he "unexpectedly" discovered a flaw in the frame, and the scene was re-shot take by take.

Later, Sergei Varchuk admitted that in fact there was little romance in these scenes - these episodes were filmed not in a room, but in the open air. Two walls were built on the platform, a bed was placed in a corner, the sun was shining over the actors' heads, and a whole crowd of onlookers from the village where the shooting took place gathered around. And it was not his partner who helped the actor to play the most poignant scene, but … a cat! In the episode where he woke up and suddenly remembered what a misfortune happened to him, a cat was lying next to him, which suddenly arranged an "improvisation": she stretched out and hugged him with a paw around his neck. This moment touched everyone so much and came so well that after this shot the cat was applauded by the whole film crew.

Tatyana Parkina got the role of the wife of Sergei Marta - a cold beauty who left the hero after he became disabled. However, in the script, her character was not so insidious and heartless. Later, the actress admitted that she was shocked when she saw the final version of the film after editing - it turned out that all the episodes in which Martha appeared from other sides and did not look like a schematic villainess were simply cut out - to contrast with the main character. As a result, the audience did not feel anything towards her except contempt and indignation, and all their love went to her antagonist, the heroine Anastasia Ivanova, who came to Sergei's aid at a difficult moment.

This film became the first minute of fame for the 20-year-old Sergei Minaev, who at that time was an unknown soloist of the Gorod group. The composer of the film Yevgeny Gevorkyan advised the director to invite young musicians. But when they heard the songs offered to them, they were indignant - they say, such a repertoire is categorically not suitable for the members of a rock group. The situation was saved by the original arrangements, the song "You" to the poetry of Mayakovsky and the shocking image of the musicians at that time. At that time, no one could have imagined that in the future Sergei Minaev would become a star of domestic show business.

Surprisingly, despite the incredible success of the film, none of the actors then became in demand in the profession. In the era of the cinema crisis of the 1990s. Sergey Varchuk was left without work and even for two years was a janitor, and only in the 2000s he again began to actively act in films and became a TV presenter. Tatiana Parkina is still associated only with Marta. Meanwhile, she was not only an actress, but also a singer performing in the late 1960s. as part of VIA "Tonika-67". There are only about 20 roles in her filmography, but most of them are episodic.

The talent of Anastasia Ivanova, who played the main role, was never considered by the directors. After this film, she was invited to the picture "The battalions are asking for fire", but after the start of filming, they unexpectedly took another actress instead. And then she played only 2 movie roles, one of which was in the film of her husband, Boris Nevzorov. And in 1993, a misfortune happened, the reasons for which they still cannot explain: The short life and tragic death of the star of the film "I Can't Say Goodbye".