Poor, poor Collins... About the existence of this two-part picture, shot on the "peripheral" (but sometimes gave out simply excellent, "seeable" works, to the envy of monsters like "Mosfilm") Soviet studio "Moldovafilm" I learned quite by accident, literally yesterday. Indeed, her fame did not thunder “all over Great Russia”, although, according to the data given here, “Woman in White” in the USSR (rent) was watched by as many as 20 million viewers (!). But the question is: are all those who bought tickets to the theaters happy with what they saw? Maybe after half an hour of viewing, there were “three cripples” in the hall, and the rest of the film lovers, yawning and grumpy, went to drink beer or (family) – for ice cream for children and “babe” flowers (an inaccurate quote from “Diamond Hand”?). I myself was in such situations in Soviet times, so the number of tickets sold is not an indicator of the popularity of the film! Then, in the absence of large-scale television advertising, the Internet, trailers, etc., people focused primarily on pasted (not everywhere!) posters and shields marked “soon”, drawn by cinema artists (alas, and artists, and sometimes their unique creations have long almost fallen out of the film distribution system ...). However, as now, potential viewers were attracted to the 1st genre ("film detective). Vyacheslav Polunin), 2) “star”, favorite actors (" Yes, you should go to Abdulov!), 3) adaptation of the famous novel by a famous writer ("Collins? Yes, we just got it in the “Subscription publications”, there, on the shelf!
... Why didn’t it work, since “Woman in White” turned out to be a completely forgotten film, and even almost unknown to new generations of moviegoers? Here you are and 20 million "cinema watches" (Ukr. "Mova" - A. P.). No, I do not think that there is any “artistic-historical injustice” here. It seems that time has put everything in its place.
... I read with great attention and pleasure the novel (I emphasize!) a classic of world literature and, incidentally, a friend and sometimes co-author of Charles Dickens Wilkie Collins. Although this is a very difficult reading (the novel is voluminous, written in 1860, when the canons of the detective genre, which Collins began to lay, almost 30 years before the “birth” of the novel). Sherlock Holmes, his compatriot Sir Conan Doyle, had just been “settled”. But what the “Woman in White” can not take away (even with the “overload” of the narrative with descriptiveness, in fact, characteristic of writers of the 19th century), is the gradual Intrigue that seems to begin with small things, but eventually grows to the size of ... baobab! With each new page, the tension increases, and some actors gradually begin to show us their true identities from under benevolent masks. Such, for example, is the “family” of the pseudograph Fosco. Even at the very beginning of their actions, I realized “what bastards they are” and I was inflamed with righteous anger!
So, almost nothing similar, “literary” in the film “Woman in White” (1981) I did not see, did not feel! There is something, but not at all what is proper! Director Vadim Derbenev, it seems, then did not “enter” in Collins, did not understand that the courtyard is already the end of the 20th century, and to somehow “adapt” a thick and old novel to the present, you need Dynamics, exacerbation of passions ... “and all that” (quoting Conferancier from the “Extraordinary Concerto” of the puppet theater Obraztsov). So he shot the director... a frank nudity (the first series, which began so early, ended with an incomprehensible “talking”; further, a little better), to which the concept of “film detective” can be attracted, except that like a circus elephant by the ears! And, as they say, there is no time to blame on the “boring” and voluminous classics, if ... Our favorite actors Abdulov, Basov, Zeldin, Yarmolnik (for modest fees "Moldovafilm") tried (but not particularly, which is noticeable) somehow "pull out" the project Derbenyov, and could not ... So, in my opinion, his natural place is on the far shelf of the Central Film Archive in the White Pillars. Remove from the shelf at the request of film critics / film critics or VGIK students writing coursework and diploma papers on the history of Soviet cinema.
5 out of 10
P.S. Attention! According to the novel “Woman in White”, as far as I know, at least two films of the same name were shot, and English films (mini-series?), but later: in 1982 (director John Bruce) and in 1997 (director Tim Faywell). I'm going to watch both, if only for comparison and out of love for the classics. I wish you so!