Interesting facts about the film "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (10 photos)

50 years ago, the premiere of Leonid Gaidai’s comedy “Prisoner of the Caucasus, or Shurik’s New Adventures” took place. Let's remember the most striking images from our favorite film and interesting facts from the history of its creation.

The creators of the comedy "Operation Y" and Shurik's Other Adventures, inspired by the success of the first film, decided to continue the story of the adventures of a cheerful student. Screenwriters Kostyukovsky and Slobodskaya, who came up with “Operation Y,” wrote a new story called “Shurik in the Mountains.” This painting was also conceived as an almanac in two parts. In the first part, Shurik rescues a girl kidnapped according to Caucasian customs, and the second is dedicated to the search for Bigfoot. But Leonid Gaidai wanted to make a full-length film, so Bigfoot had to be sacrificed. But it was decided to develop the theme of the kidnapping of a girl and mountain rituals into a full-fledged hour and a half film.

• The film premiered in Moscow on April 1, 1967. As a result, it became the undisputed leader at the box office after it was seen by 76.54 million viewers in a year.

• Initially, the film was supposed to have a sequel. According to the script, Shurik and Nina were awaiting a scientific research expedition to study Bigfoot, whom the escapees from justice Coward, Dunce and Experienced pretended to be. As a result, the commission retained only the first part of the script.

• The censors also made their own changes to the script. They did not like jokes, songs and too frivolous an attitude towards serious problems. The director was even accused of being anti-Soviet, and the film was put “on the shelf.” So he would have lain there if not for a happy accident: when they demanded to deliver some new comedy to Brezhnev’s dacha, it was Gaidai’s film that came to hand. The General Secretary liked what he saw so much that he watched the film several times and showed it to members of the Politburo who lived nearby. Nevertheless, this did not save the picture from censorship - some points had to be changed. So, for example, during the trial, the Coward says “Long live our court...”, although initially he should have said “Long live the Soviet court.” The last option was considered a mockery of the existing judicial system, and therefore minor adjustments were made. The censors completely cut out the screensaver in which Experienced, approaching the fence, writes the letter “X” on it, after which the Dunce writes “U”, and the Coward, who sees the policeman, adds “pre-production film”.

• They were looking for the main character for the film for a very long time. More than five hundred photo tests were carried out. As a result, they approved Natalya Varley, who before starting her acting career worked as a tightrope walker in the circus, and therefore could perform stunts on her own. But Nina’s voice was given by Nadezhda Rumyantseva (voice acting) and Aida Vedishcheva (vocals).

• The hero Vladimir Etush was supposed to be called Comrade Okhokhov, but just before filming it turned out that a nomenklatura worker with that last name was working at the Ministry of Culture. He forced the negative character's name to be immediately changed. They met him halfway, but it soon became clear that a high party official, Saakov, was working at Mosfilm, who also demanded adjustments for the same reason. Ekaterina Furtseva, who was the Minister of Culture at that time, accidentally heard about this story. She insisted that everything be left as it was and not adapt to anyone else's whims. Catchphrase: “Hats off!” - the fruit of the actor’s improvisation on the set.

• Vitsin, a convinced teetotaler, had to drink a glass of beer on camera. He insisted that they pour him a rosehip infusion, but the drink looked unreliable due to the lack of foam on it.

• Most of the scenes were filmed in different parts of Crimea. Views of Simferopol, Alushta, Radiant, Vysokoye, Demerdzhi, Kuibyshev, Ai-Petri appear in the frame.

• On the set, the trio Vitsin-Morgunov-Nikulin finally broke up. The actors were not particularly friendly before, but then Morgunov’s behavior infuriated the director so much that in the last scenes, where Byvaly was visible only from the back, a double was filmed.