The film was released on December 14, 1971.
Mosfilm continues to digitally restore old Soviet cinema, improving sound and image quality. The turn of the “Crown of the Russian Empire” has come – the final part of the adventure trilogy directed by Edmond Keosayan about “The Elusive Avengers”.
The film was released on December 14, 1971. The film was categorically disliked by critics, unlike the two previous parts – “The Elusive Avengers” and “New Adventures of the Elusive”.
Film critics accused the director of being addicted to the “circus” – too many tricks that are not connected by logic and common sense. Well, what’s an adventure movie without stunts?
By the way, the methods of “bloody kneading” mastered by Keosayan in the “fight in a tavern” scene, when it doesn’t matter who beats whom and for what, the main thing is to make it more fun, other filmmakers later used. , for example, the director Alla Surikova in the comedy “The Man from the Capuchin Boulevard.”
Shot of a fight in a tavern in the first episode of the film.
Film critic Yuri Bogomolov (father of director Konstantin Bogomolov) shattered The Crown…because, being carried away by tightrope walkers and circus horsemen, the director did not bother to look for fresh artistic solutions and focused only on cinematic stunts, eccentricity and horsemanship. horse riding. According to a poll of film critics conducted by the Soviet Culture newspaper, the film was named one of the worst released in 1971. However, according to the rental results, “The Crown of the Russian Empire…” ranked third in In terms of number of tickets sold for the sessions, it was only ahead of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” and “Gentlemen of Fortuna.”
People liked the following “Elusives”.
In the final part of the film trilogy about the adventures of four young heroes: Ksanka, Valerka, Danka and Yashka, who successfully fight against the enemies of the Revolution and win in an unequal battle, they talked about the new task of the Cheka. . . The elusive ones were called upon to thwart the insidious plans of the white emigrants and return to the young Soviet Republic the stolen relic – the crown of the Russian Empire.
Movie poster.
The idea for the script, which Edmond Keosayan wrote together with Alexander Chervinsky, arose from a letter from Lenin to Dzerzhinsky about organizing an exhibition of unique jewelry from the royal house of Romanov in the Hall of Columns of the House of Trade Unions. . So the Soviet leaders wanted to refute the articles appearing in the white émigré press that the Bolsheviks were “squandering” the royal jewels, which had great historical value. These rumors had their reasons. Several diamonds from the Great Imperial Crown were sold by the Bolsheviks in 1919 for $20,000 and were kept in Dublin until 1949, when they were bought back by the USSR at Christie’s auction.
Thanks to this story, the main plot was born in the imagination of the scriptwriters: the organs of the Cheka discovered a White Guard conspiracy, the goal of which was to steal the royal crown from the museum. The criminals managed to steal the crown, but could not take it abroad: the four elusive avengers interfered.
The royal royal crown was kept in Gokhran. Now – in the Kremlin Diamond Fund and is not subject to export. It is adorned with 4,936 diamonds set in silver, 75 large pearls. The crown is crowned with a brilliant red rare gemstone: a noble spinel weighing almost 400 carats.
Grand imperial crown at the Diamond Fund exhibition. Photo /ITAR-TASS/
The crown was created in 1762 for the coronation of Catherine II. Until 1917, all Russian monarchs were crowned with the Great Imperial Crown. Of course, the Diamond Fund crown was not issued for the shooting of an adventure film. It’s just that the filmmakers were allowed to make an exact copy. Instead of diamonds, Bohemian crystal. A film copy of the Great Imperial Crown is kept in the Mosfilm Museum.
The composition of the performers in the new “Elusive” has not changed much. The four heroes, although they have matured, are the same Danka, Valerka, Yashka, Ksanka, who, as in the first two parts of the trilogy, were played by Viktor Kosykh, Mikhail Metelkin, Vasily Vasilyev, Valentina Kurdyukova. The same villains remained: White Guards performed by Vladimir Ivashov, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Arkady Tolbuzin. Ataman Gnat Burnash was played by Yefim Kopelyan.
New characters appeared – a chansonette performed by Lyudmila Gurchenko, who sang “The colonel took me …”. Garson Louis-Leonid, a former violinist at the Palace restaurant, was played by composer Yan Frenkel, who wrote the music for the entire trilogy, primarily the famous Chase.
The film was shot in Moscow, Tallinn and Odessa. Under the streets of Paris, one of the central streets of Moscow was supposed to be “made up”. However, the capital’s leadership did not give permission to shoot, I had to go to Tallinn. The Eiffel Tower was filmed in the town of Gladyshevo, where they built a large wooden model of the “Iron Lady.”
The museum from which Captain Ovechkin, played by Dzhigarkhanyan, steals the crown is also not real. In the corridors of it hangs “Trinity” by Andrei Rublev (it was in the Tretyakov Gallery), paintings “Flora” and “Danae” by Rembrandt, “Perseus and Andromeda” by Rubens from the Hermitage. It’s just that the Keosayan film crew used the earlier set built at Mosfilm for the movies The Return of St. Luke and The Old Robbers. “Paris Restaurant” was “opened” in one of the “Mosfilm” pavilions.
Boris Sichkin, who played Buba Kastorsky, refused to act in The Crown of the Russian Empire. After the murder in the previous part of the trilogy, due to numerous requests from the audience, he had to be “resurrected”. His character was in the script. But still it was not possible to “revive” Buba. According to one version, Sichkin did not like the new script. And he refused to shoot, which offended the director Keosayan. According to another, he had a fight to the death with Edmond Keosayan over a card game. What really happened, no one knows for sure. But Sichkin and Keosayan have not worked together since.
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