Video: Behind the scenes of "Office Romance": What had to be cut from the film
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
This film masterpiece by Eldar Ryazanov was released 40 years ago and is still incredibly popular with viewers. Everyone has long known both the plot and the lines of the heroes by heart, but most moviegoers are hardly aware of which frames were not included in the final version of the film, and why the roles of some actors had to be reduced to several episodes.
Eldar Ryazanov together with Emil Braginsky wrote a play called "Co-workers" 6 years before the shooting began. Initially, it was intended for theaters, and performances were successfully performed on it in more than 100 cities of the country. The director decided to shoot the film after he saw an unsuccessful TV show based on this play.
There were no auditions for the main roles - the director knew in advance who he would shoot in this film. Freindlikh Ryazanov had been planning to work with Alisa for a long time, but these plans were constantly hindered by something: she was not approved for the main role in The Hussar Ballad, the actress refused to star in The Irony of Fate. But this time the director was categorical. "", - wrote Ryazanov in the book "Unsummed results".
Ryazanov received her consent, although the shooting was given to Alice Freundlich very hard. Every day she was forced to rush between the theater and the set, between Leningrad and Moscow. All this time, she actually lived on trains. In addition, according to Ryazanov, the actress showed considerable courage - after all, she had to "".
The director got great pleasure from working with Alice Freundlich and later said with admiration: "".
Ryazanov also had no doubts about the rest of the actors. He knew in advance who he wanted to see in this or that image. But Oleg Basilashvili presented himself exclusively to Novoseltsev and even tried to convince the director that he was not Samokhvalov by nature. However, as a result, Ryazanov admitted that he was right, and this role became one of the best in his filmography.
But with the performers of the supporting roles it was more difficult. According to the script, the secretary Vera had a husband - his role was to be played by actor Alexander Fatyushin. Several episodes were filmed with him, but the actor fell ill, and the doctors forbade him to go to the set. Therefore, Vera's husband became virtual, and all dialogues with him took place exclusively on the phone. In the film, there are only two episodes with Fatyushin, where he, in a crowd of other employees of the Institute of Statistics, is surprised at the "resurrection" of Bublikov and admires the appearance of the transformed boss Kalugina.
On the set, the actors often improvised, enriching the script with their own findings - for example, the scene of Novoseltsev and Kalugina's dinner at her house was improvised. The footage was not enough for two, but for three episodes, but the timing did not allow leaving it uncut. Therefore, not all episodes were included in the final version. Several scenes with Lyudmila Ivanova had to be cut out, where her Shurochka shouted: “It's not my fault! The namesake died, but they called us!"
The film features great poems: the heroine of Svetlana Nemolyaeva reads Bella Akhmadulina's poem "Oh, my shy hero", which had never been published before, and the song "Nature has no bad weather" was written on the verses of Eldar Ryazanov himself. True, at first he hid this fact, saying that this was an unknown translation of the English poet William Blake, so that the composer and the actors could freely express their critical remarks. But everyone approved of the poems, and later Ryazanov admitted that he was in fact the author himself.
Office Novel was released at the end of October 1977, and in its first year it was watched by 58 million people. Throughout the history of Soviet film distribution, this picture took 19th place in terms of attendance among domestic films. According to the results of a survey of readers of the magazine "Soviet Screen", this comedy by Ryazanov was recognized as the best film in 1977, and Andrei Myagkov and Alisa Freindlich were named the best actor and actress.
Interesting and little-known is the fact that one of the "heroes" of the film migrated from one set to another: two favorite Mosfilm mascots.
Recommended:
Behind the scenes of "Autumn Marathon": Why Danelia thought he had made a "male horror film"
37 years have passed since the release of this film, but it still does not lose its relevance and still enjoys the same popularity among viewers, although after the premiere, director Georgy Danelia heard a lot of indignant reviews: women were unhappy that the main character was so and did not make a choice between his wife and his mistress, and their spouses called "Autumn Marathon" a film of male horrors. And this was not an exaggeration - almost all the members of the film group admitted that they themselves would be very
Behind the scenes "Treasure Islands": What scenes had to be cut from the film
RL Stevenson's novel Treasure Island has more than once become material for creating cartoons and film adaptations, and the Soviet film version of 1982 has become one of the best, most complete and most accurate. This film enjoyed the same popularity among adults and children, but the first version, according to the censors, was not childish at all, and many fragments had to be cut out during editing
Behind the scenes of the film "The Taming of the Shrew": What scenes were cut out by the Soviet censorship, and what Celentano was silent about for many years
Today one of the most famous Italians in the world, a wonderful singer, composer, actor, director and TV presenter Adriano Celentano turns 80 years old. And in adulthood, he did not lose his attractiveness and charm, and films with his participation still do not lose their popularity all over the world. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most famous of them. However, not everyone knows that Soviet viewers did not see several episodes cut by the censorship. And the answer to the question whether the novel was me
Behind the scenes of the film "You never dreamed of ": Why the director was accused of promoting debauchery, and the ending had to be changed
On April 8, Soviet actor Nikita Mikhailovsky could have turned 55, but he has been dead for 28 years. All-Union popularity brought him the main role in the film "You never dreamed of …", which was called the story of Soviet Romeo and Juliet. In the early 1980s. this film became a cult movie, but it might not have appeared on the screens at all - the script was not approved at the artistic council for a long time, and the ending had to be rewritten
What's left behind the scenes of "White Sun of the Desert": Cut scenes and a different ending
This film has long become a classic of Soviet cinema, although its shooting was accompanied by great difficulties, the director was accused of being incompetent, and the audience might not even see their favorite characters on the screens. Few people know that the "White Sun of the Desert" originally had not only a different title, but also a different ending, and the cut episodes would be enough for two episodes