Behind the scenes of the film "Straw Hat": How vaudeville played a cruel joke with Mironov and Gurchenko

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

The musical comedy by Leonid Kvinikhidze was filmed 44 years ago and has not lost its popularity since then. The key to success "Straw Hat" the director named both the brilliant cast, improvising on the go, and the unique atmosphere of lightness and fun that reigned on the set from the first to the last day of work. True, after the release of the film, Andrei Mironov and Lyudmila Gurchenko did not laugh: because of the "lightweight vaudeville" they lost their roles in the film by Eldar Ryazanov.

In 1973, Leonid Kvinikhidze finished work on the film "The Collapse of Engineer Garin", which critics immediately dubbed "the collapse of the director Kvinikhidze." There were a lot of disapproving reviews, and in order to distract from them, the director suggested to his colleagues: "Now let's shoot something funny!" For the film adaptation, the vaudeville "Straw Hat" by French authors Marc-Michel and Eugene Labiche, written in 1851, was chosen. Initially, no one took this work seriously and did not expect that the film would turn out to be a film masterpiece "for centuries."

In the new film, the director invited the same actors with whom he worked in "The Collapse of Engineer Garin" - Oleg Borisov and Nonna Terentyeva. However, Borisov was unable to act in film due to illness, and Lyudmila Gurchenko was more convincing on auditions than Terentyeva. When selecting actors, the director was guided primarily by personal sympathy and tried to gather those artists who knew each other and got along well. And this strategy turned out to be a win-win: a relaxed, friendly atmosphere reigned on the set, and the shooting was very easy.

This film is called the film debut of Mikhail Boyarsky. Although before that he had already starred in several films, his first works were not noticed. He got to the shooting of "Straw Hat" thanks to his father, who had known Kvinikhidze for a long time and himself played the episodic role of a sentry in the gatehouse in the film. The Italian tenor Ninardi was so brilliant in the performance of Mikhail Boyarsky that it was this work that became the start of his successful film career.

The actors often improvised in the frame, and the director did not interfere with this, although the text of the script changed on the go. Childhood friend Kvinikhidze, actor Mikhail Kozakov, according to whose idea the Viscount de Rosalba looked like a dandy with an unconventional sexual orientation, introduced a lot of new colors to the image of his hero. When he first uttered his remark about the romance “Evening Breeze” with a meadow, cows and a young, young shepherd boy, Andrei Mironov broke down and laughed right in front of the camera: in the final version of the film, these scenes were included unchanged.

Complete freedom of action and the director's trust motivated the actors to maximize dedication and improvisation, as a result, many funny episodes appeared in the film that were not written in the script. In the scene of the duel, the wig flew off Kozakov's hero. Everyone laughed, Alisa Freundlich covered his bald head with a fan, but the actor was not taken aback and immediately reacted: “” The director said not to turn off the camera and continue filming. In the next episode, the improvisation was picked up by Andrei Mironov. He approached Alice Freundlich, passionately kissed her on the neck and, turning to Boyarsky's hero, issued: "" The film crew went into hysterics, and this episode became one of the most successful in the film.

Mikhail Boyarsky later admitted that then the main teacher for him was Alisa Freundlich, who gave him valuable advice during the filming. He said that "" - she was so brilliant in this role that next to her and an inexperienced actor felt more confident.

Ekaterina Vasilyeva was approved for the role of the bride of the protagonist. But at the last moment, the artistic council said that the bride should be more pretty, and recommended to invite another actress. Marina Starykh got to the shooting by accident, before that she had not acted in films and among the masters of Soviet cinema she felt very insecure. But even this tightness played into the hands of the director - her heroine just had to look just like that. And Ekaterina Vasilyeva ended up playing the role of an unfaithful wife, because of whose missing straw hat a commotion arose. Vasilyeva came to the shooting accompanied by the famous playwright Mikhail Roshchin, with whom she had an affair at that time. And the director decided to shoot him in the episode as a lamplighter.

After the premiere of the film, both the director and the actors expected incredible success. The “Straw Hat” enjoyed phenomenal popularity among viewers, all phrases immediately diverged into quotes. But there was one person whom this glory did not please at all - Eldar Ryazanov. The fact is that he was just getting ready to start filming "The Irony of Fate" and was going to shoot Lyudmila Gurchenko and Andrei Mironov in the main roles. However, their "vaudeville image", according to the director, would prevent viewers from taking them seriously in dramatic roles. And he started looking for other actors. Still, Gurchenko and Mironov appeared in The Irony of Fate: when Ippolit turned on the TV, there was a scene from The Straw Hat where the two were dancing together.

And Eldar Ryazanov later shot Lyudmila Gurchenko in his other masterpiece: Behind the scenes of the film "Station for Two".