Video: Behind the scenes of the film "Circus": Why Lyubov Orlova was taken away from filming in an ambulance
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
This film was released more than 80 years ago and has long become a classic of Soviet cinema. Role in "Circus" turned an actress Lyubov Orlova into a real movie star, although this success was not easy for her. During the filming, there were a lot of curiosities, and after one of them the actress even ended up in a hospital ward.
Director Grigory Aleksandrov made the decision to film this comedy after seeing the play Under the Circus Dome, staged in the Moscow Music Hall. He invited Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, the authors of the play, to create a film version. However, their cooperation was short-lived - during the filming, disagreements arose, because of which the writers left the project, forbidding even to indicate their names in the credits. The director's interpretation of the plot did not suit them, but Aleksandrov was not ready to make concessions. They were not going to denounce world imperialism and saw their work as a everyday satirical comedy, and the director, in their opinion, spoiled the plan with his ideological edits. As a result, Aleksandrov had to complete work on the script together with Isaac Babel, who agreed to add some of the dialogues.
The main character in the play was called Alina, but Aleksandrov changed her name to Marion Dixon - this was a reference to Marlene Dietrich, his favorite foreign actress. This role went to Lyubov Orlova, who brilliantly coped with the tasks assigned to her. To assess the level of her professionalism, it is enough to recall one episode: during the filming of a choreographic act on a cannon, she had to dance on a glass platform above the muzzle of the cannon, where a searchlight was mounted. The glass got very hot, and according to the script, the actress had to sit down after performing the dance, continuing to sing. Orlova sank down on the red-hot glass, without batting an eye, but after the filming was over, she had to call an ambulance. At the hospital, she was diagnosed with a third-degree burn.
The little dark-skinned actor, who played the role of the main character's son, became native to the actress in real life. Lyubov Orlova, and after filming, together with her husband, visited Jim Patterson in Riga, where he studied, and when he came to Moscow, he often visited the spouses at their dacha in Vnukovo. The actress gave him her unrealized maternal tenderness, saying once: "".
The premiere of the film took place at the end of May 1936 at the Green Theater of the TsPKiO im. Gorky. Then so many spectators gathered that the order in the hall had to be monitored by the detachments of the mounted police, specially summoned for this occasion. After the release of the film, Lyubov Orlova became the No. 1 star, not only in the USSR, but also abroad. Together with her husband, they presented Soviet films at film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Rome, Berlin and Paris. These films enjoyed constant success everywhere: for example, in 1937 "Circus" was awarded the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition in Paris, and in 1941 - the Stalin Prize of the first degree. Circus became the leader of the Soviet film distribution for many years.
The music for the film was written by the composer Isaac Dunaevsky. His "Song of the Motherland" ("Broad is my native land") has become one of the most popular and recognizable Soviet songs. In the late 1930s. it was even discussed among the variants of the anthem of the USSR. As a result, this song became an unofficial anthem - its opening chords were used as the callsigns of the All-Union Radio, it sounded at all solemn events and parades. One of the compositions written for this comedy was then rejected, and it was later included in another film - "Children of Captain Grant". This was the song "Sing a song for us, merry wind."
Some episodes of the comedy have been edited several times: in the 1950s. reshoot the final shots during the performance of "Song of the Motherland", in the 1960s. the film was re-dubbed. First, they cut out and then returned the frame in which the actor Solomon Mikhoels performed one of the verses in Yiddish.
Grigory Alexandrov's dream to shoot a color comedy came true only in 2011, when a colorized version of the film was released. At that time, color film was too expensive, and the director was allocated black and white at the studio.
The film career of Lyubov Orlova was very successful, not only thanks to her husband-director, but also due to the fact that she was favorite actress of Stalin and the most beautiful film star of the 1930-1940s.
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