Movie " Incredible adventure Italians in Russia ”was released on April 8, 1974 and took fourth place in the annual box office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that basically the audience went to Mironov. Therefore, it is no coincidence that on October 16 of the same year he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
Fifty million viewers watched the comedy in one year, and it occupies 39th place in the list of the highest grossing Soviet films.
Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky wrote an application for a script for a joint Soviet-Italian film comedy back in 1970. It was called Spaghetti in Russian. Goskino did not like the application: they said that the Italians were somehow unpositive, rogue and they needed to be redone. Co-authors who were forced to "redo" all their lives national heroes, responded with an outraged refusal.
Quote from the authors' application: “The plot is based on the misadventures of a group of Italian adventurers who are trying to take possession of the jewels buried in Yaroslavl during the revolution. The situation chosen by the authors makes it possible to deploy a fun and exciting comedy action. A significant place in the future film is given to the image of the Soviet policeman Serebryakov, which is positively interpreted by the authors.
Meanwhile, real Italians - the firm "Dino de Laurentiis" fully confirmed the myth of the fraudulent nature of their nation, owing "Mosfilm" a serious amount after the filming of the film "Waterloo" by Sergei Bondarchuk. It was possible to return the money only by starting a new joint production. So the application of Ryazanov and Braginsky was "safely" reanimated.
This is how posters in the USSR and other countries looked like, where they showed "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia."
However, the producer Dino de Laurentiis told our creators - Everything that you wrote is nonsense, I need a chase film consisting of stunts. The only thing that can be saved is the story of the living lion.
The unfortunate co-authors began to invent tricks: landing an airplane on a highway, jumping while a bridge was being opened, and risky scenes with a lion. The plot approved by the Italian co-authors was again carried to the producer, and he ordered that some episode in GUM be inserted into the picture: there are no such huge stores in Europe, and it will impress the audience.
And he also ordered to compose a scene where the characters throw cakes at each other - this is a trick that has been tested on the audience, it's funny. The pieces were inserted, the script was eventually approved by both sides, "Spaghetti in Russian" became "Italians in Russia". Ryazanov re-read the script, was horrified by the abundance of tricks and gloomily said: "I feel sorry for the director who will shoot it."
As a result, Ryazanov himself became the director. There was a moment when he said: “I won’t shoot such nonsense!”. However, the leaders of Goskino put pressure on Ryazanov, and he agreed. The preparatory period for filming in Russia lasted thirty-one days - by Soviet standards, this was catastrophically short, with us, almost every trick was prepared for several months. Filming began on May 14, 1973 in Moscow.
Within two months, nine-tenths of the entire film was shot. The director himself admitted that he had never filmed at such a pace. The film crew worked two shifts daily, including Saturday. The Italian actors could not stand the rhythm of filming and complained to their patron. Ryazanov knew that there was an opinion in the West that Russian actors were extremely slow. And his picture proved the opposite - foreigners saved.
The actors were chosen by the producers, which was, to put it mildly, unusual for Ryazanov. The Italians saved on everything, and the actors were no exception. Ryazanov dreamed of working with Vittorio Gassman, but since de Laurentiis did not initially believe in the success of the picture, no one even bothered the stars, they picked someone cheaper. Once Ryazanov approved the photo another candidate, and then received a message that the actor could not act in film - he was in prison for non-payment of taxes.
The costumes for the film sent by the Italians turned out to be such rags that the indignant Ryazanov ordered a telegram to be sent to Rome stating that Mosfilm was not a junk shop. As it turned out later, she was not sent, so as not to complicate relations with partners.
No matter how Eldar Alexandrovich Ryazanov puffed and protested against the Italian arbitrariness, he had to fulfill all the wishes of his partners. And there was GUM, and a lion, and obligatory Russian nesting dolls, and a plane landing on a highway, and numerous car stunts, and a gas station explosion, and numerous views of Leningrad and Moscow. So it turned out to be a completely finished essay on the topic “ Soviet Union through the eyes of foreign guests.
These same guests did what they wanted. Hotels were provided during filming in Italy low level. They could not (or did not want to?) organize the work at the required level, cut down on the extras, refused to draw the necessary signs, emphasized in every possible way who was the boss in the house. Ryazanov even had to declare a boycott and threaten absenteeism from work.
Italian actors also behaved as they wanted. Sometimes it was difficult to cope with the assigned tasks. Sometimes they were cowardly when it was necessary to perform some difficult trick. And in some scenes, the text was scribbled so non-stop that the actress Olga Aroseva, who played the mother of the protagonist, could not insert her line. As a result, the actress had to resort to extreme measures: she plugged the throat of one of the Italian partners with a towel and only then managed to utter her words.
But still, our artists were not all that bad. Ours (and in the picture there are three of them - Andrei Mironov, Olga Aroseva and Evgeny Evstigneev) got a rare opportunity to spend time in Italy for free. Capstrana, and what a! For those times sweet dream Soviet man. Evstigneev, who played the colorful Lame in The Italians, also brought his second wife, Lilia Zhurkina, to Rome.
For example, Andrei Mironov had two shooting days, and he spent three weeks in Italy and answered the telephone questions of his then wife Ekaterina Gradova: “What are you doing there, because you have already filmed?” - Mironov answered specifically and cheerfully: “Stupid! I live here!"
Andrei Mironov very rarely used the services of understudies and stuntmen, and insisted on doing all the stunts himself. For example, in the episode when his hero climbed an 11-meter ladder, which was on a fire truck moving at a speed of 60 km per hour. The actor got out of the cab, climbed onto the stairs, made his way on all fours to its end, slid down onto the roof of the Zhiguli driving under the stairs and climbed into the cabin. Even for an experienced stuntman, this was a difficult trick.
Mironov also descended from the window of the sixth floor of the Astoria Hotel, holding the carpet with his hands, and the scene in which Captain Vasilyev swam under water, diving under water for jewelry, was filmed in Naples, and therefore Andrei Mironov sank to the bottom of a warm mediterranean sea and not the cold Neva.
In the trick with a divorced bridge, the only scene in the film with the participation of understudies (Ninetto Davoli (Giuseppe) jumped by himself, without an understudy), in the episode where the steamer sails under the bridge (they filmed the steamer "Taras Shevchenko", whose cabin was increased by 2.5 meters) participated circus students.
To give the viewer the impression that the trick was performed by artists, they needed close-ups. They persuaded Mironov, and he hung over the river on the rearing wing of the bridge, the height of which was approximately 15 storey building. Below, the Neva was splashing, a motor ship was sailing under Mironov. Mironov struggled to climb the bridge for real. Filmed the entire episode in one day.
Most of the sculptural images of lions shown in the film have never been in reality in Leningrad, for example, near the Singing Chapel and not far from the Italian Bridge across the Griboyedov Canal.
The scene with the Tu-134 landing was filmed at the Ulyanovsk airfield, at the pilot school civil aviation, runway "made up" under the highway. The deputy head of the school, Ivan Antonovich Tarashchan, suggested: "Take a letter from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in which they will allow me to fly in violation of the instructions, and I will do the trick."
However, the Ministry of Civil Aviation responded with a categorical refusal. Then the pilot Tarashchan demanded: “Cars - only cars, driving - only pilots: in this emergency it will be easier for them to navigate instantly and accurately. AT total the plane landed 6 times and each time flawlessly. The shots where the Tu-134 is driving along the highway, and cars scurrying under it, were filmed on the reserve lane. In some shots of the plane landing scene, uncamouflaged airport radar equipment is visible.
In the scene where the mobster gets stuck in the plane's window and it becomes covered in ice, a mica shell was actually used, made by special effects master Giulio Molinari. Sprinkled with talc and naphthalene, the shell sparkled and shimmered, it was possible to break off pieces from it. The role of the doctor was played by Eldar Ryazanov himself.
In those years, this comedy hosted a "presentation" newest model Zhiguli VAZ-2103. "Troika", or "treshka", in 1974 was the most expensive and prestigious passenger car of a small class of the domestic auto industry. Having barely appeared on the movie screen, the VAZ-2103 became a dream car for tens of millions of Soviet people.
A lot of chrome parts, a hitherto unseen tachometer, armrests and headrests, as well as a powerful engine - all this made the "troika" a car standard. To this should be added the excellent build quality of the Zhiguli, especially cars in export versions. Many components for them were purchased for foreign currency in Italy, Hungary and other foreign countries.
In comparison with the clumsily made “Zaporozhets” and “Moskvichs”, VAZ cars were quite deservedly perceived Soviet people like real foreigners. In the course of the “Adventures of the Italians” action, the red VAZ-2103 famously swept through the mud, flew over the fence, hit its sides against various obstacles, and after turning into a pile of crumpled iron, it was famously restored by workers of the Soviet car service. Of course, even our kids understand that several identical cars take part in the filming.
Since the film included a lot of car stunts, our foreign partners bought for filming not even two, but five pieces of Moskvich-412 and VAZ-2103. A team of Soviet stuntmen began to prepare cars for filming.
But then the producer of the picture appeared and said that Italian Sergio Mioni would perform all the tricks. Arriving in Moscow, he wrote whole list props he needs. Were in this list and seat belts. What it is, few people in the USSR then imagined. The assistant director of the picture ran and brought him a fire hose: "Let's grab it with two bolts to the body - and order." Hearing this, Mioni fainted. Then they sent him real belts from Italy.
In the distant 70s in our country, in the process of filming, only decommissioned cars were allowed to be beaten. This rule did not apply to the Italians, so while working on the "Incredible Adventures" of the five brand new Zhiguli, they shattered as many as three pieces. However, the game was worth the candle. After the comedy was released in foreign film distribution, it made an excellent advertisement for the Volga Automobile Plant, whose products were just beginning to be purchased Western countries.
Continuing the car-water theme, it is worth recalling the episode in which the Moskvich-412 manufactured by AZLK (it differed from the Izhevsk counterpart only in the shape of headlights and radiator lining) forces a water barrier along the bottom of a reservoir. It was at this moment that a phrase was uttered that caused a frenzied burst of laughter in the cinema halls - an Italian sitting in the passenger seat asks the driver: “Be careful, you will crush the fish!”
Most of the stunts in the car chase were performed by Italian stunt driver Sergio Mioni. The episode when "Moskvich" and "Zhiguli" fall under a jet of water and mud, become "blind" and rush about, chasing each other, was performed by Soviet racers, they also carried out the entire driver's part of the number with fire engine. By the way, leaving the Moskvich washed out from under the jets of water, the broken right headlight turned out to be restored a little earlier
During all car stunts, cars show miracles of regeneration: when the heroes get into Moskvich on a trailer, the bumper is already bent and the feed is raised, there is also no rear window; in the scene where the Muscovite is catching up with the Zhiguli, the first car is intact, and the dents are already visible on the second, after a strong blow to the rear, the Zhiguli flies over the river with a slightly dented rear bumper.
And in the scene when the Moskvich is driving down the slope on the roof, it is clear that there is no engine or transmission on the car, and the wheels are welded to pipes instead of bridges, so when the Zhiguli “throws” the Moskvich from the roof, the latter does not work at all
During the filming of the explosion of a gas station, artist Mikhail Bogdanov erected a gas station that was no different from his prototypes, as a result, many cars drove up to refuel.
By the way, Alighiero Noskose, who played Antonio, became famous in Italy for parodying stars and politicians. Helped the leaders Masonic Lodge"P-2", which in the late 1970s were preparing a coup d'état in Italy. Alighiero called public figures and spoke to them with the voices of politicians.
With an actor named King - a lion who grew up in the apartment of a Baku architect - the relationship also did not work out. Training and home education are not the same thing at all.
The wayward beast did not give a damn about the tight shooting schedule, the budget, the Soviet-Italian relations - he ignored the script and did only what he wanted. He did not want to jump into the window of the nesting dolls warehouse - and the group dutifully waited for three nights. On the fourth, King became interested in something inside the warehouse, and he jumped.
Lev King was a pet - he lived in the Berberov family, who became famous throughout the country for their apartment menagerie. King needed a whole refrigerator of food for lunch: a few kilograms of meat, eggs, fish oil. The Berberovs' salary was small, and it was very difficult to feed a huge adult lion. So they accepted the filming offer.
When filming Lion King, his owner, after reading the script, said, “The script is very bad. It does not take into account even a hundredth of the capabilities of my King. And King can do anything! After that, the script was replenished with new episodes and stunts. However, in reality it turned out that the lion is lazy, refused to do many tricks the first time. In one of the episodes, Lion King climbed hind legs and scratched the back of an Italian actor. And Mironov played three doubles with the beast.
Then the actor admitted that he was wildly afraid. But, apparently, the king of beasts liked the charming blond, and he did not touch him. And the film included a unique shot of a policeman teaching a lion.
After that, Ryazanov promised himself never to be an animal director again.
Work in "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" became a star for King and last hour. As a temporary living space for the period of filming in Leningrad, the whole school was given to the family. At some point, the lion was left in the school gym for a few minutes unattended. King became interested in an onlooker in the school garden.
According to eyewitnesses, the guy began to make faces and jump, turning either face or back to the lion. For King, it was a call to play: the assistant rehearsed with him the episode for "Italians" when the lion runs after the man and knocks him to the ground. He stood on his hind legs, squeezed out the glass in the window, ran up to the guy and knocked him to the ground.
The girl who was waiting for him at the fence shouted: “Help, the lion is tearing a man!”. Militia lieutenant Gurov was returning from a lunch break. He heard screams, ran up to the fence, without understanding what was happening, shot at King. The lion immediately moved away from the guy towards the broken window. But Gurov unloaded the entire clip into King.
The showing of the Tu-144 supersonic aircraft was supposed to end the film. It was his rise that was supposed to “freeze” against the backdrop of the closing credits of the film. But, at the insistence of party leaders, these shots were replaced with shots of an Il-62 taking off. Just a year before the release of the film, the Tu-144 crashed at the air show in Le Bourget.
The film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" - light, dynamic and not particularly claiming anything - did not gain fame in the foreign box office (de Laurentiis, they say, regretted that he did not take foreign stars in the picture), but in our country they watched it with pleasure. Eldar Ryazanov did not consider him his luck. And in vain, this picture is much stronger than many of his highly controversial paintings. last period. So in this case, the audience knows better - they have always been supportive of the "Italians".
The domestic audience is well aware of Eldar Ryazanov's film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia". However, not everyone knows that a real drama broke out during the filming of the legendary comedy, and for some people involved in the film, it turned into a tragedy at all.
It all started with a conflict between Lenfilm and its Italian film production partners. Back in 1970, foreign colleagues and domestic filmmakers worked together on the film "Waterloo". The Italians owe the Leningrad film studio a large sum. Soviet filmmakers did not fail to take advantage of the moment and offered to pay off the debt to put the tape on the script by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky. But the Italians rejected the text. Temperamental colleagues from the southern country longed for more action and dynamics.
The Soviet co-authors had no choice but to start inventing tricks and vivid scenes. The landing of the plane on the highway, the jump during the opening of the bridge and the risky scenes with the lion - now the foreign colleagues were satisfied. However, Eldar Ryazanov, after reading new version the script is confusing. “I feel sorry for the director who will shoot it,” the maestro made a gloomy conclusion.
So the adventure comedy was born, which fell in love with millions of viewers. The world premiere of the film took place on January 31, 1974.
One of the main roles in the film was played by the city on the Neva. According to the script of the film, it was here that a Russian emigrant buried treasures worth nine billion Italian lire even before the revolution. Before her death, she managed to tell her granddaughter that the jewels were hidden in Leningrad, under a lion, of which there are a great many in Northern Venice in the form of statues and bas-reliefs. It is here that tireless adventurers from Italy rush to find the treasured treasure.
The appearance of Eldar Ryazanov in the episodes became the director's signature style, a kind of quality mark with which he marked his films. In The Italians, the maestro plays the role of a doctor, calmly wielding a chisel and a hammer in order to rescue the mafia Rosario from ice captivity. An Italian treasure-hunting crook's rivals left him as a running gag when he smashed a plane window and ended up half overboard.
The main role of the captain, and then the police major under cover of Andrei Vasiliev, was played by the brilliant Andrei Mironov. The favorite of the public almost never resorted to the services of stuntmen, independently doing all the complex and dangerous stunts. "Italians in Russia" was no exception. It is Mironov who hangs over the Neva, holding on to the edge of the raised bridge, descends from the window of the sixth floor of the Astoria, grabbing the carpet, and slides down from the extended ladder of the fire truck onto the roof of the Zhiguli at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour.
Andrei Mironov said that between Italian and Soviet actors on film set there was something like a competition. Neither one nor the other wanted to lose face, and therefore sought to perform all the tricks on their own.
Charming Olga - the granddaughter of a Russian emigrant - was played by Antonia Santili. Eldar Ryazanov could not resist the beauty Italian actress and included in the film a scene of naked Olga in the shower. The filmmakers were very worried about whether the censors would miss the piquant episode. Fortunately, everything worked out, and the Italian actress appeared in the frame without clothes.
By the time of filming with Eldar Ryazanov, Antonia Santili managed to play roles in eleven films. And this is just two years of film career. It is curious that the artist chose to play in "The Italians", rejecting the offer to star in crime drama Serpico with Al Pacino leading role. However, the role of Olga was the last for the Italian actress. She got married and began to lead a closed lifestyle.
The life of Alighiero Noskose, who played the role of the silly orderly Antonio, was much more dramatic. At home, he gained popularity, brilliantly parodying stars and politicians. He skillfully used the talent of a mockingbird in political activity, helping the Masonic lodge "P-2" to prepare a coup d'état in Italy. The artist called public figures and spoke to them with the voices of politicians. The conspirators did not succeed, and the actor himself, five years after filming in The Italians, ended up in a clinic with a deep depression and soon died.
It would seem that "The Italians" is a light comedy, designed to entertain the viewer with the misadventures of Italian adventurers in Russia. However, the tape not only amuses the viewer, but also engages in a dialogue with world cinema, sometimes parodying, sometimes playing with fragments from best films that time. For example, in the scene of the gas station explosion, Eldar Ryazanov makes fun of the cult film Zabriskie Point by Michelangelo Antonioni. The film that became the anthem of the protest youth of the 70s.
By the way, the gas station in the movie is fake. This is a layout. But the scenery was made so skillfully that Soviet motorists stopped by to refuel.
As planned by the scriptwriters of The Italians, one of the main characters in the film was to be a real lion. Just at that time, the Berberov family from Baku became widely known in the USSR, keeping a living lion in their apartment. The royal animal was distinguished by a good disposition and did not show aggression towards humans. Therefore, the creators of the comedy turned to the fearless owners to let their pet play one of the key roles in The Incredible Adventures of the Italians. Moreover, the beast already had cinematic experience.
The lion was brought to Leningrad a month before the start of filming. He needed acclimatization. The animal turned out to be wayward and categorically refused to follow the director's instructions. One scene with a lion could take four days of shooting. Ryazanov was so outraged by this that he subsequently stopped shooting four-legged artists in his paintings.
It was not easy for the actors either. This is not surprising. A few years later, Ninetto Davoli, who played the eccentric orderly Giuseppe in the film, showed scars all over his back left by a four-legged colleague on the set.
For the famous lion throughout the country, the role in "Italians" was the last. He was taken to Moscow, where he was left on the territory closed school. On July 25, 1973, student Valentin Markov passed by with a girl. The couple was with a dog. Suddenly, the animal escaped and ended up on the school grounds. The unsuspecting student jumped over the fence to catch up with the dog. Here the lion attacked young man. He knocked down the guy with a swoop and began to roll on the ground, and then stuck the head of the unfortunate man into his mouth. The girl screamed. Policeman Gurov responded to the cries. He immediately drew a pistol from its holster and fired the entire clip into the animal. The lion died on the spot. Student Markov was seriously injured.
A second lion was brought into the Berberov family. On November 24, 1980, he attacked the owner, Nina Berberova, and then her 14-year-old son. The boy will die.
The viewer probably remembered the spectacular scene with the Tu-134 landing on the highway. In fact, the shooting took place on the runway at the airfield in Ulyanovsk. It's just that the filmmakers skillfully disguised the air harbor as a highway. The plane landed six times. Yes, so that each double could well enter into final version movie.
The film ends with an IL-62 soaring into the sky to the accompaniment of the song "Amore vieni". The composition is performed by Muslim Magomayev, but for some reason they forgot to indicate the brilliant singer in the credits of the film.
+2Genre: comedy, adventure
The film starred: Andrey Mironov, Antonia Santilli, Ninetto Davoli, Alighiero Noschese, Tano Cimarosa, Gigi Ballista, Evgeny Evstigneev, Olga Aroseva, Anatoly Stepanov, Alexander Lukyanov, Valerian Vinogradov, Franca Sciutto
Directed by: Eldar Ryazanov, Franco E. Prosperi
Writers: Emil Braginsky, Eldar Ryazanov, Franco Castellano, Pipolo
Cinematographers: Mikhail Bits, Gabor Pogany
Artists: Alexander Zakharov, Mikhail Bogdanov
Producer: Luigi De Laurentiis
Country: USSR, Italy
The film premiered in Moscow on March 18, 1974, in Rome on January 31, 1974.
The film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" was released on April 8, 1974 and took fourth place in the annual box office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that basically the audience went to Mironov. Therefore, it is no coincidence that on October 16 of the same year he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
Fifty million viewers had fun over the tape in just one year.
True, Ryazanov then was not laughing. Ryazanov and Braginsky wrote an application for a script for a joint Soviet-Italian comedy film back in 1970. It was called Spaghetti in Russian. The Film Committee did not like the application: they said that the Italians were somehow unpositive, crooked and they needed to be redone. The co-authors, who had been forced to “remake” domestic heroes all their lives, responded with an indignant refusal.
I quote the authors of the application: “The plot is based on the misfortunes of a group of Italian adventurers who are trying to take possession of the jewels buried in Yaroslavl during the revolution. The situation chosen by the authors makes it possible to deploy a fun and exciting comedy action. A significant place in the future film is given to the image of the Soviet policeman Serebryakov, which is positively interpreted by the authors.
In 1973, a group of restorers repainted the façade of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. This was timed not to the 270th anniversary of the city, but to the arrival of a delegation from the Apennine Peninsula. The person at whose invitation this delegation arrived was called Eldar Ryazanov. He was going to shoot The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia.
Meanwhile, real Italians - the company "Dino de Laurentiis" fully confirmed the myth of the fraudulent nature of their nation, owing "Mosfilm" a serious amount after the filming of the film "Waterloo" by Sergei Bondarchuk. It was possible to return the money only by starting a new joint production. So the application of Ryazanov and Braginsky was "safely" reanimated.
“Everything you wrote is nonsense,” Dino de Laurentiis told our creators. “I need a stunt chase movie. The only thing that can be saved is the story of the living lion.
The unfortunate co-authors began to invent tricks: landing an airplane on a highway, jumping while a bridge was being opened, and risky scenes with a lion. The plot approved by the Italian co-authors was again carried to the producer, and he ordered that some episode in GUM be inserted into the picture: there are no such huge stores in Europe, and it will impress the audience.
And he also ordered to compose a scene where the characters throw cakes at each other - this is a trick that has been tested on the audience, it's funny. The pieces were inserted, the script was eventually approved by both sides, "Spaghetti in Russian" became "Italians in Russia". Ryazanov re-read the script, was horrified by the abundance of tricks and gloomily said: "I feel sorry for the director who will shoot it."
As a result, Ryazanov himself became the director. There was a moment when he said: “I won’t shoot such nonsense!”. However, the leaders of Goskino put pressure on Ryazanov, and he agreed. The preparatory period for filming in Russia lasted thirty-one days - by Soviet standards, it was catastrophically short, we had almost every trick prepared for several months. Filming began on May 14, 1973 in Moscow.
Within two months, nine-tenths of the entire film was shot. The director himself admitted that he had never filmed at such a pace. The film crew worked two shifts daily, including Saturday. The Italian actors could not stand the rhythm of filming and complained to their patron. Ryazanov knew that there was an opinion in the West that Russian actors were extremely slow. And his picture proved the opposite - foreigners saved.
The actors were chosen by the producers, which was, to put it mildly, unusual for Ryazanov. The Italians saved on everything, and the actors were no exception. Ryazanov dreamed of working with Vittorio Gassman, but since de Laurentiis did not initially believe in the success of the picture, no one even bothered the stars, they picked someone cheaper. Once Ryazanov approved a photograph of another candidate, and then received a message that the actor could not act in film - he was in prison for tax evasion.
The costumes for the film sent by the Italians turned out to be such rags that the indignant Ryazanov ordered a telegram to be sent to Rome stating that Mosfilm was not a junk shop. As it turned out later, she was not sent, so as not to complicate relations with partners.
No matter how Eldar Alexandrovich Ryazanov puffed and protested against the Italian arbitrariness, he had to fulfill all the wishes of his partners. And there was GUM, and a lion, and obligatory Russian nesting dolls, and a plane landing on a highway, and numerous car stunts, and a gas station explosion, and numerous views of Leningrad and Moscow. So it turned out to be a completely finished essay on the topic "The Soviet Union through the eyes of foreign guests."
These same guests did what they wanted. Low-end hotels were provided during filming in Italy. They could not (or did not want to?) organize the work at the required level, cut down on the extras, refused to draw the necessary signs, emphasized in every possible way who was the boss in the house. Ryazanov even had to declare a boycott and threaten absenteeism from work.
Italian actors also behaved as they wanted. Sometimes it was difficult to cope with the assigned tasks. Sometimes they were cowardly when it was necessary to perform some difficult trick. And in some scenes, the text was scribbled so non-stop that the actress Olga Aroseva, who played the mother of the protagonist, could not insert her line. As a result, the actress had to resort to extreme measures: she plugged the throat of one of the Italian partners with a towel and only then managed to utter her words.
But still, our artists were not all that bad. Ours (and in the picture there are three of them - Andrei Mironov, Olga Aroseva and Evgeny Evstigneev) got a rare opportunity to spend time in Italy for free. Capstrana, and what a! At that time, the sweet dream of a Soviet person. Evstigneev, who played the colorful Lame in The Italians, also brought his second wife, Lilia Zhurkina, to Rome.
For example, Andrei Mironov had two shooting days, and he spent three weeks in Italy and answered the telephone questions of his then wife Ekaterina Gradova: “What are you doing there, because you have already filmed?” - Mironov answered specifically and cheerfully: “Stupid! I live here!"
Andrei Mironov very rarely used the services of understudies and stuntmen, and insisted on doing all the stunts himself. For example, in the episode when his hero climbed an 11-meter ladder, which was on a fire truck moving at a speed of 60 km per hour. The actor got out of the cab, climbed onto the stairs, made his way on all fours to its end, slid down onto the roof of the Zhiguli driving under the stairs and climbed into the cabin.
Even for an experienced stuntman, this was a difficult trick. Mironov descended from the window of the sixth floor of the Astoria Hotel, holding on to the carpet with his hands, hung over the Neva, grabbing the edges of a raised bridge at the height of a twenty-story building, and below him a steamer sailed under him. In one of the episodes, the lion King got up on his hind legs and scratched the back of an Italian actor. And Mironov played three doubles with the beast.
To be honest, this film is based on Mironov, it is around him that the slender Olga (Antonia Santilli) dances around him, giving the audience a couple of scenes on the verge of a striptease, but on the whole playing a big and pure love with the character of Mironov, a funny mafioso performed by Tano Cimarosa, an absurd couple of Italian relatives and other characters.
Mironov not only miraculously played his role, again giving the audience an alloy of charm, fun and grace (his first appearance, when he drives up the gangway to the plane, is extremely effective), but also showed miracles of acting courage. The courage of the pilots from Ulyanovsk, who landed the plane directly on the highway, and even without the permission of their superiors, is quite understandable. Pilots are, by definition, brave people, and even Ryazanov teased them: “What, weak?” - that's what they released.
But when an artist, an intellectual, a representative of a purely peaceful profession hung, clinging to the edge of the raised bridge, and silently performed other tricks - it was something. Mironov himself went down the carpet path from the sixth floor of the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad (in which, by the way, he always stayed when he came to Leningrad). The scene in which Captain Vasiliev swam under water, diving under water for jewelry, was filmed in Naples, and therefore Andrei Mironov sank to the bottom of the warm Mediterranean Sea, and not the cold Neva.
And his direct communication with the lion King, who had previously demonstrated his not too friendly disposition, became a legend at all, having received the classification of a modest acting feat.
The future actress Maria Mironova was born during the filming of "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia." Andrey Mironov was at that time in Leningrad. According to the memoirs of Eldar Ryazanov, when Mironov was informed of the birth of his daughter, he had dinner at the Sadko restaurant of the Evropeiskaya hotel. From happiness, the young father then almost ate Yevgeny Evstigneev's fake plastered leg.
Russian "troika"
In those years, this comedy hosted a “presentation” of the latest Zhiguli model, the VAZ-2103. "Troika", or "treshka", in 1974 was the most expensive and prestigious passenger car of a small class of the domestic auto industry. Having barely appeared on the movie screen, the VAZ-2103 became a dream car for tens of millions of Soviet people.
A lot of chrome parts, a hitherto unseen tachometer, armrests and headrests, as well as a powerful engine - all this made the "troika" a car standard. To this should be added the excellent build quality of the Zhiguli, especially cars in export versions. Many components for them were purchased for foreign currency in Italy, Hungary and other foreign countries.
In comparison with the clumsily made "Zaporozhets" and "Moskvichs", VAZ cars were quite deservedly perceived by Soviet people as real foreign cars. In the course of the “Adventures of the Italians” action, the red VAZ-2103 famously swept through the mud, flew over the fence, hit its sides against various obstacles, and after turning into a pile of crumpled iron, it was famously restored by workers of the Soviet car service. Of course, even our kids understand that several identical cars take part in the filming.
The picture about which in question, joint - the director was Eldar Ryazanov, and the producer was the Italian Franco Promori. Since the film included a lot of car stunts, our foreign partners bought not even two, but five pieces of Moskvich-412 and VAZ-2103 for filming. A team of Soviet stuntmen began to prepare cars for filming.
But then the producer of the picture appeared and said that Italian Sergio Mioni would perform all the tricks. Arriving in Moscow, he wrote a whole list of props he needed. Were in this list and seat belts. What it is, few people in the USSR then imagined. The assistant director of the picture ran and brought him a fire hose: "Let's grab it with two bolts to the body - and order." Hearing this, Mioni fainted. Then they sent him real belts from Italy.
In the distant 70s in our country, in the process of filming, only decommissioned cars were allowed to be beaten. This rule did not apply to the Italians, so while working on the "Incredible Adventures" of the five brand new Zhiguli, they shattered as many as three pieces. However, the game was worth the candle. After the comedy was released in foreign film distribution, it made an excellent advertisement for the Volga Automobile Plant, whose products were just beginning to be acquired by Western countries ...
Continuing the car-water theme, it is worth recalling the episode in which the Moskvich-412 manufactured by AZLK (it differed from the Izhevsk counterpart only in the shape of headlights and radiator lining) forces a water barrier along the bottom of a reservoir. It was at this moment that a phrase was uttered that caused a frenzied burst of laughter in the cinema halls - an Italian sitting in the passenger seat asks the driver: “Be careful, you will crush the fish!” ...
But the scenes with the lion turned out better with Russian actors.
With an actor named King - a lion who grew up in the apartment of a Baku architect - the relationship also did not work out. Training and home education are not the same thing.
The wayward beast did not care about the tight shooting schedule, the budget, the Soviet-Italian relations - he ignored the script and did only what he wanted. He did not want to jump out the window of the nesting dolls warehouse - and the group dutifully waited for three nights. On the fourth, King became interested in something inside the warehouse, and he jumped.
Leo King was a pet - he lived in the Berberov family, who became famous throughout the country for their apartment menagerie. King needed a whole refrigerator of food for lunch: a few kilograms of meat, eggs, fish oil. The Berberovs' salary was small, and it was very difficult to feed a huge adult lion. So they accepted filming offers.
- When filming Lion King, his owner, after reading the script, said, “The script is very bad. It does not take into account even a hundredth of the capabilities of my King. And King can do anything! After that, the script was replenished with new episodes and stunts. However, in reality it turned out that the lion is lazy, refused to do many tricks the first time.
It also turned out that the actors are terribly afraid of the lion, Mironov was the first to contact King, captivating the rest with his courage. After that, Ryazanov promised himself never to be an animal director again.
Work in "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" was the star and the last hour for King. As a temporary living space for the period of filming in Leningrad, the whole school was given to the family. At one point, the lion was left unattended in the school gym for several minutes. King became interested in an onlooker in the school garden.
According to eyewitnesses, the guy began to make faces and jump, turning either face or back to the lion. For King, it was a call to play: the assistant rehearsed with him the episode for "Italians" when the lion runs after the man and knocks him to the ground. He stood on his hind legs, squeezed out the glass in the window, ran up to the guy and knocked him to the ground.
The girl who was waiting for him at the fence shouted: “Help, the lion is tearing a man!”. Militia lieutenant Gurov was returning from a lunch break. He heard screams, ran up to the fence, without understanding what was happening, shot at King. The lion immediately moved away from the guy towards the broken window. But Gurov unloaded the entire clip into King.
By the way, subsequently, the lieutenant did dizzying career and became a general and chairman of the State Duma committee on security. After the death of King, Sergey Obraztsov and Yuri Yakovlev presented the Berberovs with a second lion, which was also named King. It was he who, a few years later, became the cause of the tragedy - he killed the son of his owners and wounded the mistress. After The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia, Eldar Ryazanov swore off taking pictures of animals.
- During the filming of the crazy passage of the ambulance along the sidewalk between the tables of the cafe, one of the extras was so frightened that he fell from shock.
— All breaking glass (porthole in the plane, the window of the nesting dolls warehouse) was created by italian master special effects Giulio Molinari, iced Mafioso is also his work.
- The scene with the Tu-134 landing was filmed at the Ulyanovsk airfield, at the school of civil aviation pilots, the runway was “made up” under the highway. The deputy head of the school, Ivan Antonovich Tarashchan, suggested: "Take a letter from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in which they will allow me to fly in violation of the instructions, and I will do the trick."
However, the Ministry of Civil Aviation responded with a categorical refusal. Then the pilot Tarashchan demanded: "Cars - only cars, driving - only pilots: in this emergency it will be easier for them to navigate instantly and accurately." In total, the plane landed 6 times and each time flawlessly. The shots where the Tu-134 is driving along the highway, and cars scurrying under it, were filmed on the reserve lane. In some shots of the plane landing scene, uncamouflaged airport radar equipment is visible.
— Most of the stunts in the car chase were performed by Italian stunt driver Sergio Mioni. The episode when "Moskvich" and "Zhiguli" fall under a jet of water and mud, become "blind" and rush about, chasing each other, was performed by Soviet racers, they also carried out the entire driver's part of the act with a fire engine. By the way, leaving the Moskvich washed out from under the jets of water, the broken right headlight turned out to be restored a little earlier
— During all car stunts, cars show miracles of regeneration: when the heroes get into Moskvich on a trailer, the bumper is already bent and the feed is raised, there is also no rear window; in the scene where the Muscovite is catching up with the Zhiguli, the first car is intact, and the dents are already visible on the second, after a strong blow to the rear, the Zhiguli flies over the river with a slightly dented rear bumper.
And in the scene when the Moskvich is driving down the slope on the roof, it is clear that there is no engine or transmission on the car, and the wheels are welded to pipes instead of bridges, so when the Zhiguli “throws” the Moskvich from the roof, the latter does not work at all
- During the filming of the gas station explosion, artist Mikhail Bogdanov erected a gas station that was no different from its prototypes, as a result, many cars drove up to refuel.
— In the stunt with a divorced bridge, the only scene in the film with the participation of understudies (Ninetto Davoli (Giuseppe) jumped by himself, without an understudy), in the episode where the steamer sails under the bridge (they filmed the steamer Taras Shevchenko, whose cabin was increased by 2.5 meters) students of the circus school participated.
To give the viewer the impression that the trick was performed by the artists, their close-ups were needed. Mironov was persuaded, and he hung over the river on the rearing wing of the bridge, the height of which was approximately 15 storey building. Below, the Neva was splashing, a motor ship was sailing under Mironov. Mironov struggled to climb the bridge for real. Filmed the entire episode in one day.
- According to the script, the Italians do not speak Russian. However, in the scene in the garden where they are counting the steps from the fountain, one of them approached the boy and asked to borrow a shovel, and both understood each other.
While filming an ambulance driving down the sidewalk between cafe tables in Rome, one of the extras was so frightened that he fell from shock
Mistakes in the movie
During all car stunts, cars show miracles of regeneration: when the heroes get into the Moskvich on a trailer, the bumper is already bent and the rear is raised, there is also no rear window; in the scene where the Moskvich is catching up with the Zhiguli, the first car is intact, and dents are already visible on the second.
After a strong blow to the rear, the Zhiguli flies over the river with a slightly dented rear bumper. And in the scene when the Moskvich is driving down the slope on the roof, it is clear that there is no engine or transmission on the car, and the wheels are welded to pipes instead of bridges, so when the Zhiguli “throws” the Moskvich from the roof, the latter does not work at all suspension.
When Giuseppe, hanging from the lighting mast on Vosstaniya Square, was talking to Andrey, behind him the time was either 15:45 or 16:00.
The heroes of the film leave the airport, getting into a brown Volga with license plate number 67-37, and get out of a black Volga with number 62-80.
The film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" - light, dynamic and not particularly pretending to anything - did not gain fame in the foreign box office (de Laurentiis, they say, regretted that he did not take foreign stars in the picture), but in our country it was watched with pleasure. Eldar Ryazanov did not consider him his luck. And in vain, this picture is much stronger than many of his highly controversial paintings of the last period. So in this case, the audience knows better - they have always been supportive of the "Italians".
The film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" was released on April 8, 1974 and took fourth place in the annual box office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that basically the audience went to Mironov. Therefore, it is no coincidence that on October 16 of the same year he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
Fifty million viewers watched the comedy in one year, and it occupies 39th place in the list of the highest grossing Soviet films.
Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky wrote an application for a script for a joint Soviet-Italian film comedy back in 1970. It was called Spaghetti in Russian. Goskino did not like the application: they said that the Italians were somehow unpositive, rogue and they needed to be redone. The co-authors, who had been forced to “remake” domestic heroes all their lives, responded with an indignant refusal.
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I quote the authors of the application: “The plot is based on the misfortunes of a group of Italian adventurers who are trying to take possession of the jewels buried in Yaroslavl during the revolution. The situation chosen by the authors makes it possible to deploy a fun and exciting comedy action. A significant place in the future film is given to the image of the Soviet policeman Serebryakov, which is positively interpreted by the authors.
Meanwhile, real Italians - the firm "Dino de Laurentiis" fully confirmed the myth of the fraudulent nature of their nation, owing "Mosfilm" a serious amount after the filming of the film "Waterloo" by Sergei Bondarchuk. It was possible to return the money only by starting a new joint production. So the application of Ryazanov and Braginsky was "safely" reanimated.
This is what posters in the USSR and other countries looked like, where they showed "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia"
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However, the producer Dino de Laurentiis told our creators - Everything that you wrote is nonsense, I need a chase film consisting of stunts. The only thing that can be saved is the story of the living lion.
The unfortunate co-authors began to invent tricks: landing an airplane on a highway, jumping while a bridge was being opened, and risky scenes with a lion. The plot approved by the Italian co-authors was again carried to the producer, and he ordered that some episode in GUM be inserted into the picture: there are no such huge stores in Europe, and it will impress the audience.
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And he also ordered to compose a scene where the characters throw cakes at each other - this is a trick that has been tested on the audience, it's funny. The pieces were inserted, the script was eventually approved by both sides, "Spaghetti in Russian" became "Italians in Russia". Ryazanov re-read the script, was horrified by the abundance of tricks and gloomily said: "I feel sorry for the director who will shoot it."
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As a result, Ryazanov himself became the director. There was a moment when he said: “I won’t shoot such nonsense!”. However, the leaders of Goskino put pressure on Ryazanov, and he agreed. The preparatory period for filming in Russia lasted thirty-one days - by Soviet standards, this was catastrophically short, with us, almost every trick was prepared for several months. Filming began on May 14, 1973 in Moscow.
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Within two months, nine-tenths of the entire film was shot. The director himself admitted that he had never filmed at such a pace. The film crew worked two shifts daily, including Saturday. The Italian actors could not stand the rhythm of filming and complained to their patron. Ryazanov knew that there was an opinion in the West that Russian actors were extremely slow. And his picture proved the opposite - foreigners saved.
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The actors were chosen by the producers, which was, to put it mildly, unusual for Ryazanov. The Italians saved on everything, and the actors were no exception. Ryazanov dreamed of working with Vittorio Gassman, but since de Laurentiis did not initially believe in the success of the picture, no one even bothered the stars, they picked someone cheaper. Once Ryazanov approved a photograph of another candidate, and then received a message that the actor could not act in film - he was in prison for tax evasion.
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The costumes for the film sent by the Italians turned out to be such rags that the indignant Ryazanov ordered a telegram to be sent to Rome stating that Mosfilm was not a junk shop. As it turned out later, she was not sent, so as not to complicate relations with partners.
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No matter how Eldar Alexandrovich Ryazanov puffed and protested against the Italian arbitrariness, he had to fulfill all the wishes of his partners. And there was GUM, and a lion, and obligatory Russian nesting dolls, and a plane landing on a highway, and numerous car stunts, and a gas station explosion, and numerous views of Leningrad and Moscow. So it turned out to be a completely finished essay on the topic "The Soviet Union through the eyes of foreign guests."
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These same guests did what they wanted. Low-end hotels were provided during filming in Italy. They could not (or did not want to?) organize the work at the required level, cut down on the extras, refused to draw the necessary signs, emphasized in every possible way who was the boss in the house. Ryazanov even had to declare a boycott and threaten absenteeism from work.
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Italian actors also behaved as they wanted. Sometimes it was difficult to cope with the assigned tasks. Sometimes they were cowardly when it was necessary to perform some difficult trick. And in some scenes, the text was scribbled so non-stop that the actress Olga Aroseva, who played the mother of the protagonist, could not insert her line. As a result, the actress had to resort to extreme measures: she plugged the throat of one of the Italian partners with a towel and only then managed to utter her words.
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But still, our artists were not all that bad. Ours (and in the picture there are three of them - Andrei Mironov, Olga Aroseva and Evgeny Evstigneev) got a rare opportunity to spend time in Italy for free. Capstrana, and what a! At that time, the sweet dream of a Soviet person. Evstigneev, who played the colorful Lame in The Italians, also brought his second wife, Lilia Zhurkina, to Rome.
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For example, Andrei Mironov had two shooting days, and he spent three weeks in Italy and answered the telephone questions of his then wife Ekaterina Gradova: “What are you doing there, because you have already filmed?” - Mironov answered specifically and cheerfully: “Stupid! I live here!"
Andrei Mironov very rarely used the services of understudies and stuntmen, and insisted on doing all the stunts himself. For example, in the episode when his hero climbed an 11-meter ladder, which was on a fire truck moving at a speed of 60 km per hour. The actor got out of the cab, climbed onto the stairs, made his way on all fours to its end, slid down onto the roof of the Zhiguli driving under the stairs and climbed into the cabin. Even for an experienced stuntman, this was a difficult trick.
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Mironov also descended from the window of the sixth floor of the Astoria Hotel, holding the carpet with his hands, and the scene in which Captain Vasiliev swam under water, diving under water for jewelry, was filmed in Naples, and therefore Andrei Mironov sank to the bottom of the warm Mediterranean Sea, not the cold Neva.
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In the trick with a divorced bridge, the only scene in the film with the participation of understudies (Ninetto Davoli (Giuseppe) jumped by himself, without an understudy), in the episode where the steamer sails under the bridge (they filmed the steamer "Taras Shevchenko", whose cabin was increased by 2.5 meters) participated circus students.
To give the viewer the impression that the trick was performed by the artists, their close-ups were needed. Mironov was persuaded, and he hung over the river on the rearing wing of the bridge, the height of which was approximately 15 storey building. Below, the Neva was splashing, a motor ship was sailing under Mironov. Mironov struggled to climb the bridge for real. Filmed the entire episode in one day.
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Most of the sculptural images of lions shown in the film have never been in reality in Leningrad, for example, near the Singing Chapel and not far from the Italian Bridge across the Griboyedov Canal.
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The scene with the Tu-134 landing was filmed at the Ulyanovsk airfield, at the school of civil aviation pilots, the runway was “made up” under the highway. The deputy head of the school, Ivan Antonovich Tarashchan, suggested: "Take a letter from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in which they will allow me to fly in violation of the instructions, and I will do the trick."
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However, the Ministry of Civil Aviation responded with a categorical refusal. Then the pilot Tarashchan demanded: "Cars - only cars, driving - only pilots: in this emergency it will be easier for them to navigate instantly and accurately." In total, the plane landed 6 times and each time flawlessly. The shots where the Tu-134 is driving along the highway, and cars scurrying under it, were filmed on the reserve lane. In some shots of the plane landing scene, uncamouflaged airport radar equipment is visible.
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In the scene where the mobster gets stuck in the plane's window and it becomes covered in ice, a mica shell was actually used, made by special effects master Giulio Molinari. Sprinkled with talc and naphthalene, the shell sparkled and shimmered, it was possible to break off pieces from it. The role of the doctor was played by Eldar Ryazanov himself.
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In those years, this comedy hosted a “presentation” of the latest Zhiguli model, the VAZ-2103. "Troika", or "treshka", in 1974 was the most expensive and prestigious passenger car of a small class of the domestic auto industry. Having barely appeared on the movie screen, the VAZ-2103 became a dream car for tens of millions of Soviet people.
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A lot of chrome parts, a hitherto unseen tachometer, armrests and headrests, as well as a powerful engine - all this made the "troika" a car standard. To this should be added the excellent build quality of the Zhiguli, especially cars in export versions. Many components for them were purchased for foreign currency in Italy, Hungary and other foreign countries.
In comparison with the clumsily made "Zaporozhets" and "Moskvichs", VAZ cars were quite deservedly perceived by Soviet people as real foreign cars. In the course of the “Adventures of the Italians” action, the red VAZ-2103 famously swept through the mud, flew over the fence, hit its sides against various obstacles, and after turning into a pile of crumpled iron, it was famously restored by workers of the Soviet car service. Of course, even our kids understand that several identical cars take part in the filming.
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Since the film included a lot of car stunts, our foreign partners bought for filming not even two, but five pieces of Moskvich-412 and VAZ-2103. A team of Soviet stuntmen began to prepare cars for filming.
But then the producer of the picture appeared and said that Italian Sergio Mioni would perform all the tricks. Arriving in Moscow, he wrote a whole list of props he needed. Were in this list and seat belts. What it is, few people in the USSR then imagined. The assistant director of the picture ran and brought him a fire hose: "Let's grab it with two bolts to the body - and order." Hearing this, Mioni fainted. Then they sent him real belts from Italy.
In the distant 70s in our country, in the process of filming, only decommissioned cars were allowed to be beaten. This rule did not apply to the Italians, so while working on the "Incredible Adventures" of the five brand new Zhiguli, they shattered as many as three pieces. However, the game was worth the candle. After the comedy was released in foreign film distribution, it made an excellent advertisement for the Volga Automobile Plant, whose products were just beginning to be acquired by Western countries.
Continuing the car-water theme, it is worth recalling the episode in which the Moskvich-412 manufactured by AZLK (it differed from the Izhevsk counterpart only in the shape of headlights and radiator lining) forces a water barrier along the bottom of a reservoir. It was at this moment that a phrase was uttered that caused a frenzied burst of laughter in the cinema halls - an Italian sitting in the passenger seat asks the driver: “Be careful, you will crush the fish!”
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Most of the stunts in the car chase were performed by Italian stunt driver Sergio Mioni. The episode when "Moskvich" and "Zhiguli" fall under a jet of water and mud, become "blind" and rush about, chasing each other, was performed by Soviet racers, they also carried out the entire driver's part of the act with a fire engine. By the way, leaving the Moskvich washed out from under the jets of water, the broken right headlight turned out to be restored a little earlier
During all car stunts, cars show miracles of regeneration: when the heroes get into Moskvich on a trailer, the bumper is already bent and the feed is raised, there is also no rear window; in the scene where the Muscovite is catching up with the Zhiguli, the first car is intact, and the dents are already visible on the second, after a strong blow to the rear, the Zhiguli flies over the river with a slightly dented rear bumper.
And in the scene when the Moskvich is driving down the slope on the roof, it is clear that there is no engine or transmission on the car, and the wheels are welded to pipes instead of bridges, so when the Zhiguli “throws” the Moskvich from the roof, the latter does not work at all
During the filming of the explosion of a gas station, artist Mikhail Bogdanov erected a gas station that was no different from his prototypes, as a result, many cars drove up to refuel.
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By the way, Alighiero Noskose, who played Antonio, became famous in Italy for parodying stars and politicians. He helped the leaders of the P-2 Masonic lodge, who in the late 1970s were preparing a coup d'état in Italy. Alighiero called public figures and spoke to them in the voices of politicians.
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Lev King was a pet - he lived in the Berberov family, who became famous throughout the country for their apartment menagerie. King needed a whole refrigerator of food for lunch: a few kilograms of meat, eggs, fish oil. The Berberovs' salary was small, and it was very difficult to feed a huge adult lion. So they accepted the filming offer.
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When filming Lion King, his owner, after reading the script, said, “The script is very bad. It does not take into account even a hundredth of the capabilities of my King. And King can do anything! After that, the script was replenished with new episodes and stunts. However, in reality it turned out that the lion is lazy, refused to do many tricks the first time. In one of the episodes, the lion King got up on his hind legs and scratched the back of an Italian actor. And Mironov played three doubles with the beast.
Then the actor admitted that he was wildly afraid. But, apparently, the king of beasts liked the charming blond, and he did not touch him. And the film included a unique shot of a policeman teaching a lion.
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After that, Ryazanov promised himself never to be an animal director again.
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Work in "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" was the star and the last hour for King. As a temporary living space for the period of filming in Leningrad, the whole school was given to the family. At one point, the lion was left unattended in the school gym for several minutes. King became interested in an onlooker in the school garden.
According to eyewitnesses, the guy began to make faces and jump, turning either face or back to the lion. For King, it was a call to play: the assistant rehearsed with him the episode for "Italians" when the lion runs after the man and knocks him to the ground. He stood on his hind legs, squeezed out the glass in the window, ran up to the guy and knocked him to the ground.
The girl who was waiting for him at the fence shouted: “Help, the lion is tearing a man!”. Militia lieutenant Gurov was returning from a lunch break. He heard screams, ran up to the fence, without understanding what was happening, shot at King. The lion immediately moved away from the guy towards the broken window. But Gurov unloaded the entire clip into King.
The showing of the Tu-144 supersonic aircraft was supposed to end the film. It was his rise that was supposed to “freeze” against the backdrop of the closing credits of the film. But, at the insistence of party leaders, these shots were replaced with shots of an Il-62 taking off. Just a year before the release of the film, the Tu-144 crashed at the air show in Le Bourget.
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The film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" - light, dynamic and not particularly claiming anything - did not gain fame in the foreign box office (de Laurentiis, they say, regretted that he did not take foreign stars in the picture), but in our country they watched it with pleasure. Eldar Ryazanov did not consider him his luck. And in vain, this picture is much stronger than many of his highly controversial paintings of the last period. So in this case, the audience knows better - they have always been supportive of the "Italians".
Once upon a time in my childhood, the film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" seemed to me very interesting and funny. And now, years later, I decided to look at how the sights of St. Petersburg were shot in this film.
I will say right away that the lions and other sights of St. Petersburg do not appear in the film immediately. First, the action takes place in Rome.
The creators clearly decided to advertise their cities for tourists. Moreover, both ours and the Italians succeeded in this, who shoved literally all the sights of Rome in the first few minutes. Moreover, for those who were in Rome, it becomes clear that they are, as it were, not near at all and not on the way, but the hero on a scooter stubbornly rides past all the sights.
Then comes the turn of Moscow and St. Petersburg, but before that, Aeroflot intervenes, which, apparently, also decided to participate in advertising the USSR for tourists. For example, a pilot is forced to land on the Minsk highway. There is nothing surprising in this, you might say. However, the plane landed on a highway filled with cars. Apparently, in this way, the USSR wanted to show the skill of pilots.
But let's go back a few minutes earlier. Here, another plot takes place in the cabin of the plane - the leader of the mafia, Rosario, steals a wallet with a passport from his competitor and tries to get rid of it by flushing it down the toilet in the toilet. What do you think will happen next? Further development The plot can be understood only if you have the brain of a child and have never flown in an airplane, but you know how toilets work in Soviet trains. And how do they work? Correctly! Wash everything out. Of course, according to the intention of the directors of this film, the wallet immediately ended up outside the plane and immediately stuck to one of the windows in the cabin. I don’t even think about the fact that the toilet is usually located in the tail section of the aircraft and in order to implement the director’s plan, the aircraft must turn on reverse. Finally, if you believe this film, then in general the entire body of the aircraft and the windows, in particular, should simply be covered with feces that are washed out of the toilet.
The mobster hits the glass with his boots to push the wallet away from the window. As a result, glass is knocked out and what would you think? Cabin depressurization occurs and oxygen masks fall? Maybe, of course, there were no masks at that time, but on the other hand, the director shows unprecedented knowledge - passengers begin to fly around the cabin, as if in weightlessness, in spaceship. I'm not talking about the strength of glass in Aeroflot aircraft and the need to fasten seat belts.
Looking ahead, I’ll say that the poor owner of the stolen passport could not enter the USSR, and could not return to Italy, but was forced to fly Aeroflot planes for the entire film back and forth. The fact that, as it were, a citizen of Italy can apply to the consulate in the USSR in connection with the loss of documents and that these situations are somehow settled in their homeland, apparently Soviet citizens should not know.
But back to the most interesting. According to the plot of the film, the grandmother, dying, said that all her fortune was buried under a lion in Leningrad, from where she was forced to emigrate during the revolution. And in St. Petersburg there are a great many lions. Of course, the heroes begin to chase from one monument to another, digging up each of them along the way.
Moreover, both existing ones, for example, lions at the Bezborodko dacha, and non-existent ones are used:
Lions in front of the Smolny Cathedral
Lions near St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral
Lions at the Sheremetyevo Palace on the Fontanka
Lions at the Academic Chapel, in front of the Pevchesky Bridge (a non-existent fountain is located nearby - an additional sign of treasures)
Lions on Arts Square in front of the Russian Museum
Lions at the Italian bridge
Leo Tolstoy (a non-existent monument on Vosstaniya Square is accompanied by a non-existent fountain)
Griffins on the Bank Bridge
To top it off, griffins are given out for lions on the Bank Bridge.
In general, having written this list now, I was surprised why the lions that actually exist were not involved in the filming:
Lions on Elagin Island - on the Western Spit and in front of the Elagin Palace
Lions on the Makarov embankment
Lions on the Admiralteyskaya embankment
Lion Bridge on the Griboyedov Canal
House of Lobanov-Rostovsky ("house with lions", now the Four Seasons Hotel)
After running around and sabotaging the streets of Leningrad, the Italians calm down for a while and appear romantic relationship between Olga and Andrei, but it soon becomes clear to Olga that Andrei is a policeman embedded in this company of plunderers of Soviet property.
Then it occurs to the Italians that the lion is a live lion in a cage, which is in a zoo. After a couple of moments, a chic cage with a lion appears in the frame, almost covered with gold. The author, as it were, hints that the lion is the king of animals and that a real lion should definitely live in best conditions than its stone and cast-iron counterparts. Petersburgers know about the multi-year saga with the relocation of the zoo from the city center to a more spacious outskirts. So, even now lions in a real zoo are kept in simply nightmarish conditions - they are given cages a little larger than a train compartment.
I have no doubt that the operators tried to show St. Petersburg as attractively as possible. Views appear in the frame, one more beautiful than the other, but in places there are obvious curvature of space. For example, a tram rides along Belinsky Square (in front of the circus), and after a turn it ends up on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. A moment later, he already enters the Trinity Bridge (then the Kirovsky Bridge), and again falls on the Strelka.
All this way, our heroes are pursued by a lion, which, apparently, taught traffic rules, so it stops every time a red traffic light turns on.
Of course, drawbridges should have been shown in the frame. For some reason, they only get divorced during the day, and a 3-deck motor ship "Altai" floats under the bridge. On the wheelhouse of the ship (which will not pass under the brought down bridges), especially for filming, they stuck another superstructure, on which our treasure hunters climbed out. It is worth noting that such three-deck motor ships do not have a maritime register and cruise only along the rivers of Russia, and do not go through the center of St. Petersburg. Unless in exceptional cases - when they are transferred to Finland for repairs.
