The Blackamoor of Peter the Great

Name: The Blackamoor of Peter the Great
Genre: Romance, Comedy, History
Released: 1976-06-06
Duration: 1 h 35 min
Rating: 7.9
Cast: Vladimir Vysotsky, Aleksey Petrenko, Ivan Ryzhov, Irina Mazurkevich, Mikhail Kokshenov

Сказ про то, как царь Пётр арапа женил (1976)

Timing: 1:35 (95 min)

7.9/10
23 728

—
no scores

5.8/10
18

7.2/10
551

Rate the movie:

All about film

Video 1

Photo 8

Actors and characters

Watch film The Blackamoor of Peter the Great — «Сказ про то, как царь Пётр ара́па жени́л» — Высоцкий В.С. отрывок из к/ф. 1976 г.

0:55

Movie poster "The Blackamoor of Peter the Great"

Photo 8

Release date

1976-06-06

Country

Soviet Union

Production

Mosfilm

Genre

Romance, Comedy, History

Budget

Revenue

Website

Director

Aleksandr Mitta

Actors

Vladimir Vysotsky, Aleksey Petrenko, Ivan Ryzhov, Irina Mazurkevich, Mikhail Kokshenov, Evgeny Mitta, Semyon Morozov, Valeriy Zolotukhin, Mikhail Gluzskiy, Oleg Tabakov
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Semyon Kutikov

Operator

Valery Shuvalov

Composer

Alfred Schnittke

Artist

Georgi Koshelev, Igor Lemeshev

Audition

Editing

Nadezhda Veselovskaya, Z. Karpukhina
All team (36)

Short description

Peter the Great takes a Russian man of African heritage - Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal - under his wing as the tsar builds his grand navy. After having a disastrous affair in France, Ibrahim vows to never fall in love again, until he sees the daughter of a wealthy boyar. Peter the Great insists the two be married, but Ibrahim goes against the tsar's wishes, refusing to force her to marry him since she doesn't consent. When another man tries to marry her, however, Ibrahim's loyalties and generous nature are put to the test.

What's left behind the scenes

During filming, Vysotsky stayed at the Jurmala Hotel on Jomas Street, the center of the resort's bustling life. Rooms for the film crew were provided from the fund of the Jurmala City Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia by its First Secretary, Karlis Licis. This was arranged by the film's administrator, Julijs Krumins, who was also responsible for the production process and, to prevent the artist from suffering from hangovers, gave him kefir into which a small amount of vodka had been previously injected.
The first version of the film, edited by director Alexander Mitta, consisted of two episodes. However, at the insistence of the Goskino leadership, the director was forced to re-edit and significantly shorten the film, returning to the previously approved single-episode version.
Ibrahim Hannibal was never married to a Russian girl. In 1731, he married a Greek woman, Evdokia Andreevna Dioper, and in 1736, he married Christina Scheberg.
According to V. Frid's memoirs, Vysotsky was very glad for the opportunity to play the role of an "intelligent man in an unintelligent world." He threw himself passionately into the work, and not only as an actor. After just a few days, Vladimir Semyonovich brought two songs for the film: "The Brigand's Song" and "The Cupolas." However, during editing, it became clear that these songs "set a bar that the film could no longer reach." Therefore, although it had already been decided which episodes these songs would appear in, Alexander Mitta decided to discard them.