Six babies and acting "quirks": How the main Soviet film about a scout was created

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

In August 1973, for 12 evenings in a row, strange things were happening in the Soviet Union: electricity consumption increased sharply, while water consumption decreased, and even street crime was practically zero - this fact was recorded in police statistics. For the first time, the vast country watched Tatiana Lioznova's film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

How it all began

It is believed that the unofficial "godfather" of the picture was the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Yuri Andropov. Allegedly, in a conversation with Yulian Semyonov, he praised the political detectives that the writer had been creating for several years, and offered to film novels about Isaev. As a concrete help, he even allowed the author to work for some time in the archives of the KGB - this opportunity really took Semyonov's breath away, because until then no other writer was so lucky. By the way, the film was advised by the first deputy chairman of the KGB, Colonel-General Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun, although in the credits he is indicated under an assumed name.

Yulian Semyonov began working on the script for the film simultaneously with the creation of the book. As a result, it was even completed a year earlier than the printed edition of the novel was published - in 1968, and already in 1970 at the Gorky film studio, the shooting of the picture began, which was destined to become the favorite film masterpiece of millions of viewers for many decades. Tatyana Lioznova was not immediately able to prove that a woman was capable of becoming a director of such a large-scale project, for this she had to "move" several male applicants, but she succeeded.

Actors and roles

"Seventeen Moments of Spring" became the leader of Soviet cinema in terms of the number of folk actors. However, the cast, as often happens, did not take shape right away. Today it seems to us that no one except Vyacheslav Tikhonov could have played the role of Stirlitz, in fact, not long before filming Tatyana Lioznova seriously considered the candidacies of Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Oleg Strizhenov, Yuri Solomin and even Gaydaevsky Ostap Bender Archil Gomiashvili (according to rumors, her during this period was just an affair with him). Fortunately, unlike all the listed actors, Tikhonov simply turned out to be more free, and the choice was on him.

Another famous actress could also play the radio operator Kat. If not for a business trip, in this role we could see Irina Alferova. The image of Frau Zaurich was written under Faina Ranevskaya, who simply refused this episodic role,. But Leonid Kuravlev was almost approved for the role of … Hitler. By the way, he looked very convincing in makeup and even began to rehearse, but, according to him, he refused:

As a result, the "antichrist" was played by the German actor Fritz Diez, who by that time had already almost become the "regular Hitler" of international cinema.

Whenever possible, the choice of actors tried to adhere to historical accuracy. So, for example, with the appearance of Schellenberg performed by Oleg Tabakov, it was incredibly possible to hit the bull's eye. According to the memoirs of Yulia Vizbora, after the film was released, Tabakov received a very unexpected message. The niece of Schellenberg himself wrote to him from Germany, who thanked the Russian actor very much for the way he played this role. The woman admitted that she revised the picture several times in order to look at "Uncle Walter".

But with the image of Heinrich Müller came a bobble. The director's group did not have photographs of a real historical person, and Leonid Bronevoy was not taken for this role for external resemblance. Then it turned out that the real Mueller was a tall, thin, hump-nosed brunette. However, the image of the "good-natured" chief of the Gestapo became, as a result, one of the most striking in the film. Bronevoy himself argued that if he knew then what the historical Muller looks like, he would most likely refuse the role.

As close to life as possible

The film, despite the enormous internal tension and military-espionage theme, in the course of the development of the plot does not at all refer to the militants. It has very little movement and action scenes. In contrast to this, Tatyana Lioznova did her best to "revive" the characters. In order to more deeply show the inner world of the protagonist, she, for example, finished the script herself and came up with the images of Frau Zaurich and Gaby. Their dialogues were created literally on the set, almost impromptu, although such liberties were deeply contrary to her directorial approach.

In general, from the point of view of acting, the role of Stirlitz is considered very difficult. According to Lev Durov, in it, therefore, it was necessary to create around him some little things of life. For example, a dog that put Stirlitz's head in his hands. This episode came out quite by accident - it is not known whose dog just wandered onto the set and approached the actor herself.

For the rest of the characters, the director came up with special human "flavors", as Lioznova called them, "quirks". So, for example, Mueller's characteristic movement, when he jerks his neck from a tight collar, was born by accident during filming - the suit really interfered with Bronevoy, and he involuntarily did this several times:

Obersturmbannführer Eisman, played by Leonid Kuravlev as a result, in addition to the Aryan nose with a hump, also received a black eye patch. The actor was not given the role of an employee of the Gestapo, and so, according to Lioznova,.

There were other difficulties on the set of the film. For example, a baby who had to be filmed. Children always create difficulties on the set, so at first they thought to use a doll, but then abandoned this idea - a tense scene when a newborn is undressed by an open window, of course, would not have been possible without a real child. By the way, I want to reassure everyone at once - in fact, it was so warm in the pavilion that the sound engineer even had a problem with recording crying, then he had to go to the children's hospital to finish writing it. The youngest actor was snoring peacefully at the time of filming the heartbreaking episode. Another unexpected question had to be resolved when it turned out that children were growing too quickly (as you know, only strangers, of course). Since the shooting lasted three years, six different babies had to be filmed in the role of a "real hero".

The fate of Vyacheslav Tikhonov gave the actor a bright love, which, unfortunately, turned into a huge disappointment. Read about it in the review by Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Nonna Mordyukova: "they came together like ice and fire"