He who has not been to the sea has not prayed to God. Your mother will not deceive you, but will deceive you with the blue fog. Do not hope, fisherman, for the weather, but hope for the sail tight.
It is difficult to find a director more devoted to maritime themes than Vladimir Alexandrovich Brown. In almost all the titles of his films there are words that immediately determine the affiliation of the picture: “shores”, “sailors”, “ship”, “seaman”, “seaman”, etc. He never changed his love throughout his career. Among his works there are real masterpieces, for example, “Maximka” (1952) or “Sailor Chizhik” (1955), and there are simply very heartfelt tapes about the sea, about sailors. The penultimate film in Brown’s biography “The Sea Calls” is just such. Nelly Morozova and Valentin Morozov wrote a script in which they somewhat departed from the traditional cases of images of large families, in which each child had the whole set of positive qualities.
In the picture, the widow of the Black Sea sailor Ekaterina Matveevna Chumak (Lyudmila Skopina) has four sons. The elder Matvey (Anatoly Solovyov) had just been demobilized and came to his mother with the intention of continuing the work of his tragically deceased father. The second son - Victor (Yuri Puzyrev) - works as an assistant captain on the fishing boat "Medusa". The third son, Boris (Alexander Susnin), serves as a radio operator in the port. And the youngest – Timka (Vava Ulitin) – is still in school, but also dreams of one day becoming a sailor. The film is called “The Sea Calls” is not accidental at all, because all Chumakovs – from small to large – only they live. And even the widow Ekaterina Matveevna in a woman forgives the angry sea for taking her husband.
In the film, Vladimir Brown focused not so much on maritime romance as on the “coastal life” of sailors. He made it interesting, giving each character an individual character. Despite the fact that all four are brothers, they are completely different. Matvey is strong-willed and determined (this is what the war made him). Victor is unpredictable, cocky. Boris is purposeful, while boyishly soft. Timka, who was wonderfully played by Vova Ulitin, is a real daredevil, as a boy should be at his age. The main conflict of the picture is built on the second son of Ekaterina Matveevna – Victor. However, in the films of those years, this is more the rule than the exception.
Do not forget that the cinema of that time was not so much entertaining as educational. Often, a pre-selected character was artificially accentuated to the position of a “white crow”, so that he would then be “reeducated” by the whole world. There is nothing strange about this, because even in the 80s, teams had to “coddle” with such troubled workers. Of course, both writers understood how the audience would react to Victor’s behavior in a variety of life situations – only outrage. Even the love line they deliberately made “forked”.
By the way, both Antonina (Nadezhda Sementsova), and Nastenka Fedorenko (the inimitable Nadezhda Rumyantsev!), played brilliantly, creating bright and memorable characters. However, Nastenka Fedorenko is perceived differently than Antonina. This happens because sympathy is always on the side of the “loser”, and the teacher – a serious reasonable person – somehow not out of hand to rush the wedding. But all of these are not the drawbacks of the picture – this is the picture itself, which was conceived and shot by talented people. And the viewer’s business is only to watch and thank them for allowing us from the 21st century, as if on a time machine, to be transported to the era of the first decade after the Great Patriotic War.
“In the transparent wave the moon has shaken, and the stars shine in your eyes.” Do you hear the sound of the sea? He wants us to meet again.