Operation Y and Other Shurik's Adventures

Операция «Ы» и другие приключения Шурика (1965)

Timing: 1:35 (95 min)

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8.75/10
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All about film

Video 1

Photo 21

Actors and characters

Release date

1965-07-24

Country

Production

Mosfilm

Genre

Comedy, Romance, Crime

Budget

$0

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Leonid Gaidai

Actors

Aleksandr Demyanenko, Mikhail Pugovkin, Aleksei Smirnov, Yuriy Nikulin, Georgiy Vitsin, Yevgeni Morgunov, Natalya Seleznyova, Vladimir Basov, Vladimir Vladislavskiy, Emmanuil Geller
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Leonid Gaidai, Moris Slobodskoy

Producer

Operator

Konstantin Brovin

Composer

Aleksandr Zatsepin

Artist

Audition

Editing

Valentina Yankovskaya
All team (23)

• The film was a box office leader in 1965 (69.6 million viewers).
• In 1965, the short film "Delirium" was awarded the "Silver Wawel Dragon" prize at the Krakow Short Film Festival.
• The film was shot in Leningrad, at the Mosfilm pavilions, in the Svyblovo district and near Moscow State University (Moscow), as well as in Odessa. Additionally, the architecture of Moscow in the 1960s can be seen in quite detail in the scenes of the novellas.
• It ranks 7th in attendance among domestic films for the entire history of Soviet film distribution.
• Vladimir Vysotsky auditioned for the role of the foreman.
• On June 1, 1964, auditions for actors for the main and episodic roles began. The most difficult task was finding an actor for the role of Vladik, whom censors asked to replace with another name, seeing an analogy with Lenin's name. As a result, the character became Shurik. Gaidai reviewed over a hundred candidates, including: Oleg Vidov, Vsevolod Abdulov, Vitaly Solomin, Evgeny Petrosyan, Sergei Nikonenko, Evgeny Zharikov, Gennady Korolkov, Ivan Bortnik, Valery Nosik, Alexander Zbruev. Negotiations were also held with Andrei Mironov. Ultimately, the artistic council of the studio settled on Valery Nosik, although Gaidai himself had doubts. Accidentally seeing a photograph of the young actor Alexander Demianenko, Gaidai went to Leningrad on July 11 for personal negotiations. Both were pleased with each other. The actor later recalled: «As soon as I read the script for „Operation Y“, I realized the film was destined for success. Nothing like it had existed in our cinema before.» Valery Nosik still appeared in the film – he played an episodic role as a student taking an exam.
• Many humorous scenes were invented during filming by the actors themselves. For example, Yuri Nikulin came up with the scene where Shurik «wounds» his character (Balbes) with a rapier, and «blood» (actually red wine) flows from his chest. The scene with the skeleton clicking its teeth was also Nikulin's improvisation.
• In the fight scene between Demyanenko and Nikulin, when the latter kicks the rail cart, it rolls backward and hits a car tire. However, in the next shot, we see that there is no tire behind the cart as it approaches Shurik.
• In the short story “Operation Y,” in the market scene, it is visible that when Balbes (Yuri Nikulin) pours money from a piggy bank into his jacket pocket, the money then spills out from under his jacket and falls down.
• At the moment when Yuri Nikulin breaks bottles at the base, he puts a bottle from the crate into his jacket's right pocket. But in the scene of the fight between Shurik and Balbes with rapiers, Shurik lunges and pierces a bottle that appears in his left pocket.
• During filming in Odessa, some of the actors – Alexei Smirnov, Georgy Vitsin, and Evgeny Morgunov – simultaneously appeared in Vladimir Arkhangelsky’s novella “The Skeleton of Apollo” (from the film anthology “It Happens Too” (1965)). The film crews of both films stayed in the same hotel.
• Following the success of his previous film, “Business People,” director Leonid Gaidai decided to make a film based on an original screenplay with a modern theme. From many options, he chose the screenplay for a comedy called “Unserious Stories,” written by two authors: Yakov Kostyukovsky and Moris Slobodsky. The initial version consisted of two novellas, the main character of which was a student named Vladik Arkov – an intelligent, bespectacled young man who found himself in various comical situations and emerged from them with honor. In the first novella, he reformed a gloomy and ignorant man, and in the second, he worked as a tutor, preparing a feckless young man named Ilyusha for university entrance exams.
• On June 1, 1964, auditions began for the main and supporting roles. The most difficult part was finding an actor to play Vladik, whom censors asked to be replaced with another name, seeing an analogy with the name Lenin. As a result, the character became Shurik. Gaidai reviewed over a hundred candidates, including: Oleg Vidov, Vsevolod Abdulov, Vitaly Solomin, Evgeny Petrosyan, Sergey Nikonenko, Evgeny Zharikov, Gennady Korolkov, Ivan Bortnik, Valery Nosik, Alexander Zbruev. Negotiations were also held with Andrey Mironov. Ultimately, the studio’s artistic council settled on Valery Nosik, although Gaidai himself had doubts. Accidentally seeing a photograph of the young actor Alexander Demianenko, Gaidai went to Leningrad on July 11 for personal negotiations. Both were pleased with each other. The actor later recalled: “As soon as I read the script for ‘Operation Y and Other Adventures of Shurik,’ I understood that the film was doomed to succeed. Nothing like it existed in our cinema at the time.” Valery Nosik did appear in the film after all – he played the episodic role of a student taking an exam.
• The role of the restless girl Lena in the novella “Operation Y” was played by the daughter of poet Pyotr Gradov and the sister of actor Andrey Gradov, Tatyana. For the role of the loafer Fedya, Gaidai initially invited Mikhail Pugovkin, but after two weeks of consideration, he preferred the role of a foreman on a construction site, citing unsuitable height and build.
• After the films “The Dog Barbos and the Unusual Cross” and “The Moonshiners,” Gaidai ended his creative collaboration with composer Nikita Bogoslovsky. His collaboration with Alexander Zatsepin, then an unknown composer, began with “Operation Y and Other Adventures of Shurik.” Subsequently, no famous film by Leonid Gaidai was complete without music and songs by this composer.
• Leonid Gaidai was drafted into the army in 1942 and initially served in Mongolia, where he broke in horses for the front. Once, a military commissar arrived at the unit to recruit reinforcements for active duty. When the officer asked, "Who wants to join the artillery?" Gaidai replied, "Me!" He gave the same answer to other questions: "Who wants to join the cavalry?", "The navy?", "Reconnaissance?", which annoyed the officer. "Hold on, Gaidai," said the commissar, "Let me read the whole list." Gaidai adapted this incident for his short story "The Partner."
• Many humorous scenes were invented during filming by the actors themselves. For example, Yuri Nikulin came up with the scene where Shurik "wounds" his character (Balbes) with a rapier, and "blood" (actually red wine) flows from his chest. The scene with the skeleton clacking its teeth was also Nikulin’s improvisation.