Comedy settings or the truth protects itself Who remembers this movie today? Except that the audience, whose homes from morning to night background play paid TV channels with Soviet cinema, such as, for example, 'Golden collection'. I'm like that, even though I'm not thirty. I know this movie well, I’ve seen it many times.
What can I say? The film, of course, is not a competitor to the more famous Soviet comedies. Now many bloggers acquaint readers with the life of the USSR, focusing on the details of classic films from past years; disassemble characters, images, conflicts - and I can not remember that this film was discussed and generally raised this topic.
Comedy in the USSR was enough for every taste. Grotesque Gaidai, realistic Ryazanov, melancholic Danelia... Is it as if this movie is lost among them? Although here Edita Pieha played herself, by the way, a major role in her. Everything seems to be in place: Vitsin, Etush, Sichkin and Prokopovich (heh, such a Himmler) - why didn't the film shoot?
"Not fired" is a little wrong. The film is not offended by attention, everyone saw it. And I, and you, and anyone ask: "Did you watch the Incorrigible Liar with Vitsin?" - you will be answered: "Yes, once watched." But he didn't become a cult. Everyone knows Vycin as a Coward, as Khmyrya, and even as Balzaminov - no one will name this role among the first. May the name of the character be remembered (Tyuturin), and the name? Or the name of his boss Mymrikov, too, maybe who will remember, and the name? That’s because the names are talking. It's not about them.
The overall atmosphere of the film is kind, funny, and somehow a little sad. The chief of the main character, the colleagues, the wife, each of them hears only himself and sees only what he wants to see. That, by the way, I, as it is now fashionable to say, hooked this film - it is about installing! The attitude of a person is primary in his worldview, the collapse of attitudes is akin to the collapse of a value system. Like ice water from the doorway as if rolled in a suit with a hat - the image is not accidental at the end, with a reference to the beginning of the action.
Usually on the pages of Soviet films on the Kinopoisk in the line "slogan" is a dash, because in the USSR such a word was simply not used. (By the way, the word "cameo" was used or not?) The role of Edita Pieha. Instead of a slogan in the USSR was a slogan or even a motto. In general, this film had a fuller title: A True Tale with a Good End. Because the gods like the Arab sheikh or Edita Pieha are kinder to the main character than his relatives. It is both sad and fabulous, and... true!
But I wanted to sort out why the movie didn't become a cult movie and seemed to get distracted. There. What reaction would the author expect from the viewer? While you wait, do not start to answer, I will try to explain with examples.
Gaidai wanted the viewer to be funny about everyday socialist realities, reduced to absurdity and therefore comic. It's called "grotesque."
Ryazanov wanted the viewer to be funny about ordinary events that could happen to each of us and that everyone could see from home through the window, at work or in the next apartment. It's called "realism." (However, Ryazanov shot dramas, but not here.)
Danielia wanted the viewer to be funny and at the same time sad with shame for the heroes. And ideally, so that everyone involuntarily would feel at least a particle of Buzykin, or a drop of Afoni, or a fragment of Pavel Vasin’s mirror - and think that maybe it is not necessary to behave in this way? I don't know what it's called. Psychological treatise.
Now compare our film with you! The hero is pathetic, like Danelievsky, but he is positive. Absurd situations happen to the hero, as with Gaidayevsky, but he lives a most ordinary life, like Ryazanovsky. And comedy installations in the USSR were also! These are the cult “Gentlemen of Fortune” and a little less well-known “You are for me – I am for you” from the director “Alexander Grey” – also far from having an all-Union known name. It’s basically the same topic.
So it's not about the director. And not in the script. Not in the actors. Then what? I can't tell you! Not because I am harmful, but because I do not want to decipher the secret of the trick, much less point out the failures of the illusionist. This is an ungrateful job.
And no, I’m not hinting at anything, but the script was written by the authors of “Operation Y”, “Caucasian Captive” and “Diamond Hand” – Kostyukovsky and Slobodskaya! Imagine: would give such a scenario to Gaidai, what could happen?
Or maybe it's not even that. . .
P.S. Did you know that the boy whose ball rolled away is Arkasha Markin, who became famous in the early Yeralashy: about the intruder according to Chekhov, about the surname Sinitsa, etc.? He got into Yeralash thanks to this movie.