Video: What remained behind the scenes of "Prisoner of the Caucasus": why Gaidai stopped working with Morgunov, and censorship banned the film for screening
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The premiere took place 50 years ago film by Leonid Gaidai "Prisoner of the Caucasus" … Everyone knows its plot by heart, and the phrases of the heroes have long become aphorisms. But most viewers do not even suspect that the film was banned from showing in 1967, and only thanks to a fluke it was seen by 80 million citizens of the USSR. And the trio of Vitsin-Nikulin-Morgunov appeared together on the screens for the last time due to the fact that one of the actors did not find a common language with the director.
Gaidai dreamed of filming melodramas, but became a classic of Soviet comedy. After he released the films "Moonshiners", "Watchdog Dog and Unusual Cross", "Operation Y", he again took up a comedy with Coward, Goonies and Experienced. Gaidai believed: "People are already living hard, let them laugh at least a little." However, this was the last collaboration for the famous comedy trio. Nikulin's son Maxim confessed in one of his interviews: “Filming is not over yet, and Gaidai has already said that this is the last movie in which he removes this trio: it has exhausted itself. And history has shown that he is right."
In the midst of the filming process, Gaidai decided to remove the "starred" Yevgeny Morgunov from work. He even ordered that an understudy be removed instead. The director often arranged views of the footage in a narrow circle. Once, for one of these sessions, Morgunov came to the hall, accompanied by drunk girls. They made him a remark: they say, why bring outsiders, because the director does not like this. To which Morgunov replied: "Just think, director, I also have Fellini!" After that, relations were completely ruined, and although Gaidai allowed him to remain in the "Caucasian Captive", in some episodes they still removed the understudy, and the director did not invite Morgunov to his next films.
Difficulties also arose with the search for an actress for the main role: Natalia Selezneva, Natalya Kustinskaya, Larisa Golubkina and Marianna Vertinskaya were auditioned for the role of "Komsomol member, sportswoman, activist and just beauty" Nina. However, the director gave preference to 19-year-old circus performer Natalya Varley, who performed all the tricks in the film herself, besides, she danced well and moved beautifully. But Nadezhda Rumyantseva spoke instead of her, and Aida Vedischeva sang.
There were even more applicants for the role of Shurik - about 40. Alexander Demyanenko seemed to the director an ideal candidate, only they decided to repaint him from a brunette to a blonde. The image of Shurik turned out to be a perfect hit on the target - so perfect that since then no one has seen an actor in a different role. This played a cruel joke on him - after that he was not offered interesting roles in the cinema.
Many of the episodes in the comedy were improvised by the actors. For example, the phrase of comrade Saakhov "Take off your hat!" was born right during filming. By the way, initially Saakhov was Okhokhov, but it turned out that the Ministry of Culture has an employee with such a surname, and then she was replaced by Saakhov. However, here, too, an overlap arose: there was also a certain Saakov in the party organization of Mosfilm! Furtseva herself spoke out in defense of this surname: “What if he were just Ivanov? Leave everything as it is!"
To the modern viewer, all the jokes in this film seem completely harmless, but the censorship committee in the late 1960s. it didn't seem so. In addition to seditious phrases like "by the way, in the neighboring area the groom stole a party member", in the film our and immoral songs - "If I were a Sultan", for example, where, it turns out, drunkenness and a dissolute lifestyle were promoted, so the most "Sharp" verse. I had to remove the splash screen with which the film began: An experienced one wrote the letter "X" on the fence, Goonies - "U", and when he saw a policeman in the distance, he hastily finished writing the "film".
The decision about the release of the comedy on the screens was made by the chairman of the State Film Agency Romanov. During the viewing, he was annoyed by everything - the plot itself, and the laughter of the projectionist, and the lines of the scriptwriters. His verdict was uncompromising: "This anti-Soviet will come out only through my corpse." To which one of the screenwriters said to the other in a whisper: "This is also an option." Romanov heard this phrase and made a firm decision to ban the comedy from showing. The film was recognized as second-rate, but thanks to the approval of Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev, the comedy was released. In the first year, it was watched by about 80 million viewers. At that time, it was the highest-grossing film in the history of Soviet cinema. And to this day, it remains everyone's favorite classic, relevant even 50 years later.
During the first viewing, it seemed "anti-Soviet" not only immoral song from the film "Prisoner of the Caucasus"but also the overseas dance twist: foxtrot as a "new kind of pornography" and other dances banned in the USSR.
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