What's left behind the scenes of "White Sun of the Desert": Cut scenes and a different ending

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

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 know that u "White sun of the desert" initially there was not only a different title, but also a different ending, and the cut episodes would be enough for two episodes.

In the 1960s. In the wake of the popularity of "The Elusive Avengers", interest in adventure cinema increased, and at the level of management it was decided to shoot "Eastern" films with a revolutionary historical content as opposed to foreign "westerns". Andrei Konchalovsky and Friedrich Gorenstein were involved in the work on the script for a new film with the working title "Basmachi" (or "Desert"). The plot is based on a story told by a participant in the Civil War, about how in Central Asia the Basmachi, fleeing from the Red Army, threw their harems in the desert. This is how another name for the film was born - "Save the Harem".

Konchalovsky soon left the project to shoot another film. Yuri Chulyukin and Andrei Tarkovsky also refused to work. Vladimir Motyl planned to shoot a picture about the Decembrists, but, having received guarantees of complete freedom of action on the set, he agreed to take up work on the proposed project about the "Basmachs". To the Soviet cinematographic leadership, the name "Save the Harem" seemed ambiguous, so another version was approved - "White Sun of the Desert".

Georgy Yumatov was invited to the role of the Red Army soldier Sukhov, but at that time he already had serious problems with alcohol, and the director's fears that he might disrupt the shooting were not unfounded. A week after the start of filming, he got into a drunken brawl and came to the set covered in bruises. Then the director decided to shoot an actor whose candidacy was rejected at the auditions - Anatoly Kuznetsov.

Non-professional actors were also involved in the filming. Only 3 out of 9 Abdullah's wives were actresses, the rest were far from the world of cinema. The women could hardly bear the heat and in those scenes where they did not need to open their faces, they were dubbed by young soldiers dressed in burqa.

Filming took place in Dagestan and Turkmenistan. Discipline in the creative team was lame - the actors often disappeared in local restaurants and participated in drunken brawls. During the business trip, we did not have time to shoot all the planned material. As a result, the commission rejected the director's work and accused him of professional unsuitability, and the film was put “on the shelf” for 4 months. But since the Ministry of Finance refused to write off the money spent on the shooting, it was still decided to give Motyl the opportunity to complete the work on the film.

In order for the film to be released, the director had to reshoot several scenes, and cut out some of the finished episodes. So, initially the ending was completely different: Vereshchagin's wife goes crazy with grief, and Abdullah's wives rush to their dead husband in despair and sob over their bodies. Sukhov expected to see the joy of salvation on their faces, but they ran past him and began to lament over their husband, as befits Eastern women. But this ending angered the leadership of Mosfilm.

Many shots were not included in the picture. So, an episode was cut out when Abdullah set fire to the tank where his wives were hiding. Women, fleeing the fire, had to throw off their clothes and get out. But they all flatly refused to appear naked. After much persuasion, they agreed, setting a condition: there should be no men on the set. But there was no way to get rid of the operators and lighting fixtures, so only the carpenter had to be driven out. The episode was filmed by hook or by crook, but the commission demanded to remove it. I also had to "cut out the thighs" of Katerina Matveyevna when she crossed the stream with her skirt up, as it was qualified as pornography. The scenes in which Vereshchagin was drinking were also deleted - the hero could not be an alcoholic.

Many scenes with Abdullah's wives were cut from the film. Art critic and translator Svetlana Slivinskaya, who played the role of Saida, says: "".

But even after these changes, the material did not satisfy the commission, and Motyl had to make about 30 more edits. The final version was significantly different from the initial one, but the director of "Mosfilm" was not satisfied with the result and did not sign the acceptance certificate. The audience would probably never have seen one of the best Soviet films, if one day they had not shown Leonid Brezhnev at a private viewing of "The White Sun of the Desert". He was so delighted with what he saw that the picture was released for hire. In the first year, the film was watched by 35 million viewers, and still it does not lose its popularity.

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