Leonid Gaidai explains to the actor Sergei Filippov in the image of Kisa Vorobyaninov the artistic task on the set of “12 chairs”. Photo: Igor Gnevashev/Legion-Media
The writer and playwright Arkady Inin, who worked with Leonid Gaidai on the last two films, recalled his words: “If on the set they laugh and are completely delighted, then the audience in the hall will not laugh at this episode. But when everything is handed over to the film crew with blood, everyone suffers, which is to say, there is hope that the audience will laugh.” And Gaidai himself was by no means a joker: his friends and colleagues called him very sad. Yuri Nikulin, when he first met him, was surprised: “In front of me was a completely serious person.”
When he met Nikulin (that is, before the filming of “The Dog Mongrel and the Unusual Cross Country”), Gaidai had a lot behind him. The war in which he was blown up by an antipersonnel mine, he underwent five operations and then almost lost his leg. He spent several years at the Irkutsk Regional Drama Theater, where he played many roles, and then realized that he wanted to go to Moscow. He applied to two universities at once: to the acting department of GITIS and to the directing department of VGIK, and GITIS considered the main one for him. If he had entered there, there would have been no “Prisoner of the Caucasus …”. But at VGIK, the exams were taken earlier, Gaidai passed them all perfectly and decided that he would study as a director.
Shot from the film “Dog Mongrel and an unusual cross”
He was about to be expelled from the institute with the motivation: “He is an established actor, it is difficult to re-educate a person like that” (in the sense of turning him into a director). And in the first independent production, “The boyfriend from the other world”, he survived a real disaster. Everyone really liked the picture, except for the Minister of Culture Nikolai Mikhailov, who made a scandal at Mosfilm and personally told Gaidai: “You put a party card on the table for me for such a film.” The image had to be shredded, removing all satire from it. As a result, a disabled 47-minute film was released on the screens (and even some). Gaidai, in order to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the highest authorities, had to stage the painting “Thrice Risen” according to the script written by Alexander Galich with his left foot – about the fate of a tugboat that survived the Civil War and Great patriotic. wars. After the story with the “Boyfriend…” Gaidai developed an ulcer; his body was so exhausted that the director became an easy victim of tuberculosis; the doctors hinted that he would hardly survive.
But he survived and shot the triumphant short films “Dog Mongrel …” and “Moonshiners”. Then “Operation” Y “…”, “Prisoner of the Caucasus…” and “Diamond Arm”. And each of the three feature films consistently became the highest-grossing film in the history of Soviet distribution – every two years, Gaidai broke its own records in terms of the number of viewers.
Shot from the movie “The Boyfriend from the Other World”
“THE STORY WITH THE CHEF IS NOT DISCLOSED”
If you read the transcripts of The Diamond Arm’s art tips, it turns out that his peers didn’t like almost everything in this movie. One “less than usual” liked Nikulin. For some reason, Nonna Mordyukova in the role of the house manager caused general hostility. (“The role of Mordyukova was decided without interest. The colors are too exaggerated,” a fairly typical review.)
It seemed to Eldar Ryazanov that Anatoly Papanov was a “dangerous artist” and that he “had pieces of a monstrous grip …”. He also said, “I have the feeling that everything drags on, almost every episode. I don’t really like the scene on the ship where Mironov and Nikulin sing. It is necessary to reduce the guide and throw Mironov through the maze … The story with the Boss has not been revealed.
By the way, about Ryazanov. If Georgy Danelia, another leading Soviet comedian, said that he treated Gaidai with great (and, apparently, mutual) sympathy, then Gaidai’s relationship with Ryazanov was not easy. Composer Alexander Zatsepin, who wrote brilliant music for most of Gaidai’s hits, put it bluntly in an interview: “Gaidai treated Ryazanov very negatively. Maybe they have something personal? This case is indicative: when Gaidai was offered to try Yuri Yakovlev for the role of Ivanov Vasilyevich, he was initially outraged: “He is Ryazan!”
Still from the movie “Diamond Hand”
Not everyone managed to get along with Gaidai. For example, he did not have a very good relationship with Archil Gomiashvili, after painful tests he was approved for the role of Ostap Bender (the Georgian actor beat dozens of applicants). “On the set, Gomiashvili often fawned and fawned,” writes the director’s biographer Yevgeny Novitsky, “which, of course, could not but annoy Gaidai, who could not stand falsehood either in professional or domestic relationships” . And when the film was ready, Gomiashvili, outraged that he was “deprived of his voice” (despite the fact that the actor spoke Russian well, Yuri Saransky again voiced the entire role. – Ed.), Abruptly changed his intonation from flattering to rude.
– If I knew what the director is such a g… but, – he told Gaidai, – I would not act in films.
“And if I had known beforehand, I would not have filmed such a d…th actor,” Gaidai retorted.
For several years they did not communicate, but at the beginning of 1977, Gaidai unexpectedly called Gomiashvili: “Do you want to see a criminal offense? Then turn on the television. Now will begin “12 chairs” filmed by Mark Zakharov. For the television version of the novel by Ilf and Petrov, filmed by the artistic director of Lenkom, where the main roles were played by Anatoly Papanov and Andrei Mironov, rejected at that time by Gaidai, Leonid Iovich clearly experienced great jealousy.
However, his own “12 chairs”, adored by millions of viewers, did not delight everyone. For example, the classic of Soviet cinema Grigory Kozintsev, seeing them, wrote in his diary horrified of him: “A boor who read the work of two clever writers. Hamster cluck.”
CUCUMBERS, ORANGE AND CASINO TAJ MAHAL
They also called him the big boy. And Arkady Inin himself remembered the phrase from him: “Keep in mind that we are making children’s films” (that is, the film should be simple so that children can feel it first of all).
Yining worked with Gaidai on his last two films, Private Detective, Operation Cooperation and Good Weather on Deribasovskaya, or It’s Raining Again on Brighton Beach. The latter was filmed in the US, and Gaidai played a small role in the film (one of the few he played on film): a crazy gambler who is carried out of the casino in his arms.
Shot from the film “Good weather on Deribasovskaya, or it’s raining again on Brighton Beach”
There was self-irony in this. Gaidai at the end of his life fell in love with the “one-armed bandits.” He lived in the metropolitan area of Aeroport, next to the airport terminal, where slot machines were installed during perestroika. And every day, returning from work, Gaidai would come to this airport terminal and pull the handle for two hours. Then, according to Inin, he was terribly worried that on the screen next to the orange he had a cucumber, and not a strawberry (fortunately, he lost a little money).
Well, when he arrived at the luxurious American casino Taj Mahal, he couldn’t find a place for himself with happiness. And almost the only time in his life he stopped following the filming process: he yelled “Motor!” without looking up from the slot machine…
LISTEN ALSO
“Zheglov is not with you!”: Vladimir Vysotsky would have turned 85 (plus)