Kidnapping, Caucasian Style
Кавказская пленница, или Новые приключения Шурика (1967)
Production
Budget
$25 313
Director
Scenario
Moris Slobodskoy
Composer
Aleksandr Zatsepin
Actors
Aleksandr Demyanenko
Shurik
Natalya Varley
Nina
Yuriy Nikulin
Balbes
Georgiy Vitsin
Trus
Yevgeni Morgunov
Byvalyy
Vladimir Etush
сomrade Saakhov
Mher Mkrtchyan
Dzhabrail
Ruslan Akhmetov
Edik
Short description
Kidnapping, Caucasian Style is a 1967 Soviet comedy directed by Leonid Gaidai. It follows Shurik, a good-natured but gullible student of ethnography who travels to a mountainous region of the Caucasus to collect local folklore. There he falls for Nina, a bright, athletic Young Communist League member, and soon finds himself caught up in a scheme to force her into marriage with the prosperous comrade Saakhov. Believing he is taking part in a local custom, Shurik becomes involved in the plot without realising what is really happening, and must find the courage and ingenuity to put things right.
The film is the third feature Gaidai directed, coming after Sovershenno seryozno in 1961 and Operation Y and Other Shurik's Adventures in 1965, and it continues the adventures of the Shurik character. Aleksandr Demyanenko plays Shurik, with Natalya Varley as Nina and Vladimir Etush as comrade Saakhov. The comic trio of Yuriy Nikulin, Georgiy Vitsin and Yevgeni Morgunov appear as Balbes, Trus and Byvalyy, and the ensemble numbers thirty-one credited cast members. The screenplay was written by Moris Slobodskoy, Yakov Kostyukovskiy and Gaidai, and Mosfilm and Goskino USSR produced the picture, which runs eighty-two minutes. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.6 out of 10 from 299 votes, indicating a generally favourable response from viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- Soviet censorship banned the following opening scene of the film, conceived by Gaidai and Nikulin: The Coward approaches a wooden fence and, looking around, draws the letter "X" with chalk. Then, the Simpleton appears and completes the letter to "U". A policeman, seeing this mess, lets out a whistle. But the Simpleton, not losing his composure, adds: "Art Film."
- The idea for the film arose after Gaidai read a story in a newspaper about a girl being kidnapped by an enamored young man in a Transcaucasian republic.
- The trio of Vitsin, Morgunov, and Nikulin fell apart during filming. The actors weren't friends to begin with. And then Morgunov, having become a star, began to behave brazenly. Once, he brought a young woman with him, and during a review of the footage, Gaidai asked all outsiders to leave the room. The woman started to get up, but Morgunov stopped her, saying it didn't concern her. Gaidai retorted that it absolutely did concern Morgunov's companion, to which Morgunov replied that she wasn't an outsider. After this, Gaidai replaced him with a stunt double in the final scenes of the film where Morgunov's character was shown from behind.
- Natalia Varley was unable to voice her character, Nina. "The Captive Maiden" speaks with the voice of Nadezhda Rumyantseva.
- All the actors during filming tried like mad to come up with funny gags. And Gaidai – he created a 'golden fund' of champagne and rewarded the author of each invented trick with a bottle.
- Initially, the film was banned. By sheer chance, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev saw it and gave permission for it to be shown.
- The song about the bears is performed by Aida Vedischeva.
- The film was shot in Crimea (which can be noticed, for example, by the Crimean license plates on the cars), in Alushta, the vicinity of Demerdzhi, in the Massandra and Ai-Petri areas, and in the Caucasus in Krasnaya Polyana (an involuntary swim in a mountain river).
- Initially, the film was supposed to consist of two novellas: the first – “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style,” the second – “Snowman and Others,” where the snowman is impersonated by a trio – Coward, Simpleton, and Experienced – to throw the police off the scent.
- It ranks fourth in attendance among domestic films for the entire history of Soviet film distribution.
- The scene where Natalia Varley's character was supposed to laugh contagiously for several minutes wasn't working. Then Nikulin, Vitsin, and Morgunov suddenly lifted their shirts and began to scratch their bellies, making hilarious faces during filming. The take was filmed perfectly.
- Natalia Varley had to learn to drive and perform complex stunt tricks herself.
- And towards the end of filming, they almost had to re-dub half the movie. The secretary of the party organization of «Mosfilm» had the surname Saakov. And in the film, there was comrade Saakhov. The real Saakov believed that the appearance of Saakhov in the picture was a hidden mockery. And he ordered the surname to be changed. Nikulin saved the situation. He reached the USSR Minister of Culture, Ekaterina Furtseva, and complained that at the whim of one single person, enormous state funds would have to be wasted. Furtseva solved the problem with one phone call to the studio: «Stop this idiocy!»
- The old walnut tree under Demerdzhi, where Nikulin's character sat and threw walnuts, became a kind of landmark in Crimea after the film's premiere and was named «Nikulin's Walnut». This tree is located near the southern slope of Mount Demerdzhi, next to the famous «Valley of Ghosts».
- Initially, the lyrics to “Song About Bears” were as follows: “Somewhere on a white ice floe, where there is always frost, bears scratch their backs against the earth's axis.” However, at the insistence of the artistic council (“Do they have fleas?”), the lyrics were changed to “Somewhere in the white world,… Bears rub their backs…”.
- The song “If I Were a Sultan” originally had another verse (“If all three of my wives pour me a hundred (variant – Let each wife pour me a hundred), a total of three hundred grams – that’s something…”), but it was not included in the film. The complete version of the song episode with this verse was shown on television in the “Blue Light” of 1966, as part of “A Tale of the Russian Forest”.
- In the scene with beer, the teetotaler Georgy Vitsin had to drink a whole mug of real beer. At first, Vitsin categorically refused the beer and demanded rosehip tea, but the tea looked unconvincing in the shot due to the lack of a foam head.
- The car used by the trio of Coward, Simpleton, and Experienced – the «Adler Trumpf» – was produced in Germany from 1932 to 1939. It had front-wheel drive and a 1.6-liter engine with 48 horsepower. The car featured in the film belonged to Yuri Nikulin and had been substantially modified by the time of filming: all its components were replaced with those from a «Moskvich-407» (in the final chase scene, the inscription «ZMA» can be seen on the wheel cover).
- The car driven by chauffeur Edik is a pre-war chassis with a handcrafted body resembling a GAZ-55 sanitary vehicle, the production of which began even before the war (1938–1945). By the time the film was being shot, such cars were practically impossible to find on the streets of Soviet cities.
- The car in which Natalia Varley’s character leaves at the end of the film is a rare, experimental «Start» microbus, unique for its fiberglass body. Only about 100 were produced, and only a few have survived to this day in good condition – this is largely due to the specific material of the body.
- Yuri Nikulin and Evgeny Morgunov considered many parts of the script to be contrived and initially refused to participate in the filming for this reason. However, the film’s director, Leonid Gaidai, managed to persuade them by promising to collaboratively revise the script for improvement.
- It took a long time to find a suitable actress for the role of Nina – more than 500 screen tests were conducted. Ultimately, they chose Natalia Varley.
- During the development process, the script was repeatedly altered by censorship. For example, the phrase spoken by Trus, "Long live the Soviet court, the most humane court in the world!" had to be changed to "Long live our court, the most humane court in the world!" because the first version was considered ridicule of the Soviet court.
- The phrase "Bambarbia! Kergudu!" spoken by Nikulin was used by Yuri Stoyanov and Ilya Oleynikov in 1992 to name their humorous series "Kergudu" – a prototype of the program "Gorodok" (Small Town).
- For filming the "vaccination" scene, Nikulin suggested using a circus super-syringe (a "zhane") to inject Byvaly. Of course, it wasn't actually injected into a sensitive part of Morgunov. The actor was laid down with a pillow between his legs. Despite all precautions, Evgeny Aleksandrovich was initially reluctant to risk it, but eventually gave in: "Inject it, whatever... But everything is close by, and if something happens…" Everything went perfectly: Alexander Demianenko proved to have a steady hand and didn’t miss, completing seven takes!
- The trick of Vicin's head turning 180 degrees was filmed in several stages. First: Vicin, lowering his papakha (fur hat) over his face, wiggles his fingers, folded on his chest – the camera films, then stops. Second: Vicin puts on his jacket backwards, with the papakha on his face, and wiggles his fingers – the camera films, then stops. And these shots are "broken up" with another piece showing the back of Georgy Mikhailovich's head: first under the papakha, and then when it is moved upwards.
- Censorship also rejected the episode where Frunzik Mkrtchyan, in response to his "wife" saying how could you steal such a girl, replies: "But in the neighboring district, a groom stole a member of the party!" Nikulin found a solution: "It's all about Mkrtchyan's accent. Let me say it for him." In the mouth of Balbes, spitting out watermelon seeds, the phrase sounded so silly that it cast no shadow on any party member. It immediately became clear to everyone that Balbes was a liar, and there was no truth in his words.
- During the bargaining scene in Saakhov’s office, Mkrtchyan’s character says the phrase – “But you’re not getting a goat, are you!”. In this phrase, the word ‘getting’ was voiced by a different actor.
- Initially, a stuntwoman was invited for the episode where Shurik falls into a mountain river in a sleeping bag, and Nina rushes to save him, but to everyone’s surprise, she began… to drown. It turned out the girl really wanted to be in the movie and lied about knowing how to swim. Natalya Varley did it all herself.
- The moment when Nina and Shurik are shivering from the cold on the shore was not staged – the water was truly icy. And to prevent the actors from getting sick, the couple was given pure alcohol after the shout of “Cut!”.
- Saakhov’s surname for Vladimir Etush’s character was changed almost before filming began. In the script, the character’s name was Okhokhov, which is indirectly indicated by at least two facts: 1) Uncle Jabrail’s phrase in the ‘conversation’ scene with Nina (“Or you’ll leave here as the wife of Comrade Saakh… Oh, what a groom!” (originally “Or you’ll leave as the wife of Comrade Okh… Oh, what a groom!”)) 2) at the 17th minute of the film, a sign on the office door is shown: “Head of the District Housing Department, Comrade Saakhov B.G.”, and it’s visible that the word ‘Saakhov’ is written on a piece of paper pasted over the sign (or added in editing), while the initials ‘B.G.’ were originally on the sign. However, a high-ranking official with the surname Okhokhov was found in the Ministry of Culture, who demanded that the negative character’s name be changed immediately. But the surname Saakhov was also demanded to be changed, for the same reason – this time, a high-ranking official with the surname Saakov was found in the ‘Mosfilm’ party organization. Yuri Nikulin accidentally told Minister of Culture Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva about this, who became angry: “And what if his name was Ivanov? We have 180 Ivanovs in the Ministry of Culture! And what now? Can’t you call a fool Ivanov? Leave it as it is!”.
- Despite the film's title and the images created in the film, the film itself was not shot in the Caucasus, but in Crimea, with the main filming locations being: the center of the city of Alushta and the Valley of Ghosts at the foot of Demerdzhi. In addition, the film features episodes shot in the city of Simferopol (the psychiatric hospital), on the top of Ai-Petri (the car stopped by Shurik with Nina), and in the Caucasus, in the Adler district of Sochi on the Mzymta River (the mountain river where Nina saves Shurik, and the ravine from Nina’s room window).
- The walnut tree from which Nikulin threw unripe walnuts ('Nikulin's Walnut') and a large rectangular stone from another of Gaidai's films, 'Sportloto-82', which San Sanych walks around, are located just a few meters apart.
- Since Natalia Varley worked as a tightrope walker in the circus before starting her acting career, she found stunt scenes easy. However, in her case, dramatic scenes were a problem due to a lack of acting skills. In Saakhov's case, there were disagreements between Leonid Gaidai and Vladimir Etush, who played Saakhov, regarding the character's image. If Etush perceived his character as a consistently serious person, unable to understand how his courtship could be rejected and he could be doused with wine, Gaidai wanted to create a grotesque image.
- During a meeting at Jabrail's house, after Trus's remark, "You are setting unrealistic plans!", Balbes chimes in — "It's like his… voluntarism!", to which Jabrail angrily replies: "No bad language in my house!". The fact is that one of the reasons for Khrushchev's removal, which occurred a year earlier, was the accusation of voluntarism, and this word was one of the main political insults of the time. The fact that the line was not removed from the film after it was shown to Brezhnev may indicate that he liked the joke.
- During the scene where the song 'If I Were a Sultan...' is performed at Saakhov's dacha, a combined radio and television set, 'Kristall-104', is shown. It combined a television with a 53 cm diagonal screen, a top-class all-wave radio receiver, a record player, and a tape recorder in a single unit. These units were produced by the Moscow Television Factory in 1958–1959 in a very small series (several hundred units).
- In the episode where Nina tries to escape from the room in Comrade Saakhov's house, she hits the door with shoes with black soles, leaving two noticeable black marks on it. In the following shots, when Vicin and Nikulin’s characters enter—the door is completely clean.
- At the very end of the film, Shurik with a donkey and Nina walk along the road. Nina stops a route taxi, which stops in a way that shows the legs of all three characters. Then the legs disappear, meaning all three got into the taxi, the taxi drives off, and the next shot shows the departing taxi and Shurik riding after it on a donkey, even though he had just gotten into the taxi.
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