Operation "Y" and other Shurik adventures
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Operation "Y" and other Shurik adventures |
| Original title | Операция "Ы" и другие приключения Шурика (Operazija "Y" i drugije prikljutschenija Shurika) |
| Country of production | USSR |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 1965 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Leonid Gaidai |
| script |
Jakow Kostjukowski Moris Slobodskoi Leonid Gaidai |
| production | Mosfilm |
| music | Alexander Sazepin |
| camera | Konstantin Browin |
| occupation | |
| |
Operation "Y" and other adventure Schuriks (original title: Операция "Ы" и другие приключения Шурика , Operazija "Y" i drugije Priklyucheniya Schu Rika ) is a Soviet comedy directed by Leonid Gaidai from the year 1965 . The main roles are played by Alexander Demjanenko , Alexei Smirnow , Natalja Selesnjowa , Juri Nikulin , Georgi Wizin and Evgeni Morgunow .
The film consists of three independent episodes: "Work colleague" ( Напарник , Naparnik ), " Illusion " ( Наваждение , Nawaschdenije ) and "Operation" Y "" ( Операция "Ы" , Operazija "Y" ). The plot follows the adventures of Shurik, a naive and nerdy Soviet student who often gets into bizarre situations but always finds a very elegant way out.
action
Episode "colleague"
On a bus, Fedja, a rowdy and drunkard, takes a place reserved for children and the disabled and refuses to give way to a young pregnant woman because she “neither has a child nor is disabled”. Shurik, who is on the same bus, puts on sunglasses and pretends to be visually impaired . When Fedja is urged to let him sit in his seat, Shurik offers the pregnant woman the seat. Fedja is angry that he was deceived and gets into an argument with Shurik. As a result, Fedja is arrested and sentenced to 15 days of community service. Ironically, he is sent to the same construction site where Shurik works part-time to serve his sentence. The site manager divides them into the same working group. Fedja is not doing his job properly, harasses Shurik and plans to take revenge on the young student. When Shurik finally strikes back, the two get caught up in a kind of Tom and Jerry chase across the entire construction site, using construction equipment and various materials as weapons. In the end, Fedja is overwhelmed and re-educated by Shurik.
Episode "Illusion"
It's time for the university summer exams and everyone is cramming for the exams. Shurik, like everyone else, is desperately looking for lecture notes and finally sees them in the hands of a girl on the tram , Lida, a student at the same university. While Shurik follows her and reads the notes over her shoulder, they are both so absorbed in the reading that Lida never looks up and assumes that Shurik is one of her fellow students. They never look at each other or speak to each other, which is followed by some kind of humorous pantomime.
They go to the girl's apartment and continue studying there, eating a snack and resting at the same time. Meanwhile, the girl takes off her clothes - still without being aware of the other's identity. After they both return to university, a fellow student distracts Shurik from Lida's notes and he loses sight of Lida. After successfully passing the exam, a mutual friend introduces him to Lida. Shurik does not recognize Lida, but is enchanted by her. He goes home with her and, after an amusing incident with a dog who is one of Lida's neighbors, finds himself back in her apartment, where he has the feeling that he has been there before ( déjà-vu ). He can guess where all the things are, and all "objects, smells and sounds" seem familiar to him. Lida assumes that he could be a telepath and has a precognition ability . She tells him to guess her wish, which she wrote on a piece of paper: "Find the teddy bear ". Shurik then kisses her. Although he did not guess the desire, the kiss evokes romantic feelings in both and they decide to meet again after the next exam.
Meanwhile, another student tries to cheat his way through his physics exam using a hidden radio to communicate with another student. In order to hide his equipment, however, he has to disguise himself in an absurd way. At first it attracts the professor's attention, who hears some radio terms from him, but the student seems to get away with it. However, the professor promptly spots a radio receiver in his pocket, hears the fraudster calling him an "idiot" and then activates a jammer before he approaches the student and blows his cover. Both laugh at the disguise, and the student gets the grade "unsatisfactory" for the exam.
Episode "Operation" Y ""
A warehouse manager wants to cover up his theft and hires three petty criminals nicknamed “idiot” (Балбес), “coward” (Трус) and “professional” (Бывалый) to orchestrate a break-in. Her elaborate plan goes awry when Shurik is asked by his landlady, an elderly woman who normally guards the warehouse, to take care of her granddaughter during her shift. As soon as it turns out that babysitting is too much for him, roles are reversed: Shurik guards the warehouse while she takes care of the child. Surprised, "Coward" does not manage to neutralize the guard as planned with a handkerchief soaked in chloroform , and instead goes to sleep. The climax of the plot is the "warehouse battle " in which Shurik and the criminals fight with various improvised weapons such as musical instruments and rapiers . The episode ends with a troubled woman arriving at the warehouse and finding Shurik and the trio lying on the floor and sleeping: "Coward" who had passed out before, "Idiot" and "Professional" who were "rendered harmless" by Shurik and Shurik himself, who fell asleep after accidentally wiping his face with the handkerchief soaked in chloroform.
production
The film was shot in Leningrad and Moscow (in the Mosfilm pavilions, in the Sviblowo district and near Moscow State University ) as well as in Odessa and Yalta . Filming began on July 27, 1964. In October, the bad weather in Moscow prevented the completion of the exterior shots, so the filming was moved to Odessa. Shooting was completed on November 22nd. The rest of the scenes were shot in Moscow and Leningrad. The lack of snow made it very difficult to shoot the third episode with the break-in in a warehouse on a snowy winter night. In the spring of 1965 the assembly of the film was largely finished. In early April, some missing exterior shots were filmed in Yalta.
The plot of the film is loosely based on a script written by Moris Slobodskoi and Jakow Kostjukowski with the title Несерьёзные истории ; it consisted of two novels about the comical adventures of the young, clumsy, but very decent student Vladik Arkov. The character of the good hero was popular in Soviet art at the time, so director Gaidai decided to follow this tendency in his next film. The plot was changed for the film and a third novel, Operation "Y", was written.
More than a hundred actors were tested for the role of the student Vladik, but Gaidai was not satisfied with any of them. He had his own personality in mind for the character and that is why Wladik was portrayed as a copy of Gaidai in the script. When Gaidai first saw a photo of Alexander Demyanenko , he noticed the resemblance to himself. Then, when he met him in person, he believed that the modest Demyanenko with glasses would be able to portray the awkward, naive and honest student.
Before filming, it was decided to dye Alexander's hair from brown to blonde. Years later his wife Lyudmila Akimovna recalled: “His hair was dyed to the last until blisters appeared on his skin. The colors were terrible back then. It is a good thing that Sascha's hair was so thick that he did not go bald despite all the experiments. "
Originally the main character was called "Wladik" (short for "Wladislaw"). Later, the director decided to name the character after the actor ("Shurik" is, like "Sascha", a short form of the name "Alexander").
After a preliminary examination of the film, the critics of the Art Council panned the acting skills of Morgunov and Wizin , but praised the acting of Nikulin . The Art Council demanded that the scenes in which Alexei Smirnov appears as a black man be cut out. However, no changes were made.
publication
Operation "Y" and Shurik's other adventures came to theaters in the Soviet Union on July 23, 1965 . The film attracted a record number of viewers in the history of Soviet cinema at the time; 69.6 million people saw the film.
The first broadcast on the 2nd program of the GDR television took place on July 29, 1976.
In 2001 the Russian label RUSCICO released a DVD version with German subtitles.
reception
The lexicon of international films described Operation "Y" and other Shurik adventures as a "comedy that - not without an educational undertone - targets all too human weaknesses."
Web links
- Operation "Y" and other Shurik adventures (in Russian with English subtitles) on YouTube
- Operation "Y" and other adventures Schuriks in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Operation "Y" and other Shurik adventures in the lexicon of international films
- Fedor Rassakov: Просто Шурик. 40 лет назад появился на свет один из самых популярных героев советского кино in Vechernyaya Moskva (Russian)