Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha

Private Guard Yevgeny Kolyshkin ( Oleg Dal ), an intelligent Moscow man living in the world of his fantasies and read books, returns from the hospital to the front. He does not fit into the surrounding reality and constantly gets into funny alterations, each time delivering a headache to the unit commander - Lieutenant Romadin ( George Shtil ).

Once, Kolyshkin accidentally meets with the harsh signalman of the Katyush regiment Zhenechka Zemlyanikina ( Galina Figlovskaya ) and gradually falls in love with her. At first, she perceives Kolyshkin as an inexperienced little boy, laughs more at him, but over time, she also begins to have tender romantic feelings for him.

Soon Zemlyanikin was transferred to the division headquarters, and he and Kolyshkin were already meeting in Berlin , in a large house occupied by the headquarters. To celebrate, Eugene and Eugene begin to play hide and seek until Zemlyanikina notices in one of the rooms an armed German who is killing her. Kolyshkin shoots on the spot a runaway German, and after a while he meets Victory Day at the Reichstag , but not so romantic and cheerful, because he forever lost his beloved girl ...

• Oleg Dal - Zhenya Kolyshkin, Private Guard
• Galina Figlovskaya - Zhenechka Zemlyanikina, guards junior sergeant, signalman of the regiment
• Mikhail Kokshenov - Zakhar Kosykh, Guard Corporal
• Pavel Morozenko - Alexey Zyryanov, Guard Senior Sergeant
• George Shtil - Romadin, Guard Lieutenant (subsequently captain)
• Mark Bernes - Karavaev, Guard Colonel (voiced by Grigory Gai )
• Adolf Ilyin - division commander (voiced by Yefim Kopelyan )
• Bernd Schneider - Siegfried (as Bernd Schneider)

In episodes

• Nelly Ilyina-Gutsol
• Tatyana Ignatova - laughing girl
• Vladimir Ilyin - Kolyshkin’s fellow soldier
• Lyubov Malinovskaya - mistress of the hut
• Igor Mikhailov - captain
• Nikolay Marton - SS Shturbannfuhrer in the German dugout
• Vladimir Musatov
• Boris Polinitsyn
• Alexander Ulyanov
• V. Fedorov
• B. Janz

Not listed in credits

• Nikolai Godovikov - episode
• Vladimir Motyl - military at the New Year's Eve
• Bulat Okudzhava - military at the New Year's Eve
• Stanislav Fesyunov - lieutenant
• L. Prokopenko - Kolyshkin’s fellow soldier
• Igor Klass - German soldier

• Script writers - Bulat Okudzhava , Vladimir Motyl
• Production - Vladimir Motyl
• The main operator - Konstantin Ryzhov
• Chief Artist - Victor Volin
• Composer - Isaac Schwartz
• Sound engineer - Evgeny Nesterov
• Directors - P. Tiskin, V. Stepanov
• Operator - K. Polukhin
• Makeup - N. Skvortsova
• Costumes - Vilya Rakhmatullina
• Set Designer - E. N. Yakuba
• Installation - Elena Bazhenova, Valentina Nesterova
• Editor - Haley Elken
• Military Consultant - Artillery Major General M. Glushkov
• Orchestra of the Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera and Ballet Theater
  • Conductor - Leo Korkhin
• Drawings - Natalia Vasilyeva
• Director of the picture - O. Gavlovskaya

Script

The idea of ​​writing the script for the film came up with Vladimir Motyl after reading Bulat Okudzhava ’s novel “Be healthy, schoolboy!”. Humor and the plot of the story prompted Motyl to the idea of ​​a plot about an intellectual schoolboy who falls into the war, and everything was out of place with him. According to the director, the film was supposed to have a love that could even turn into a tragedy through the fault of the protagonist in order to remind the viewer about the war. Having about 25 sheets of script, Motyl went to Leningrad to meet with Bulat Okudzhava. He initially refused, explaining that the script is ready, and his participation is not required, but Motyl managed to convince the poet to become a co-author. Unlike the young director, Bulat Okudzhava was a veteran of World War II and brought into the script small, but important details, dialogs and images that were not accessible to Motyl. For example, the dialogue for the scene, when Zakhar Kosykh hears the conversation between Zhenya and Zhenya on the phone and takes it at his own expense, was completely written by Okudzhava ^[1] . In turn, the decision on the death of Zemlyanikina was made by Motyl, and already during the filming: thereby the director wanted to show the tragedy of the war ^[2] .

Also, a lot of real facts were played out in the script. The story when a Soviet soldier , having lost his way with a parcel, came to the Germans on New Year's Eve, was borrowed from front-line newspapers. Unlike Zhenya Kolyshkin, the soldier hid that he was at the disposal of the enemy, and this only opened by the end of the war. The scene in the Baltic Sea , where Zemlyanikina and Kolyshkin missed a few steps without meeting, came to the director from a personal tragedy experienced in childhood ^[2] .

The completed script " Mosfilm " closed. According to Vladimir Motyl, the film did not comply with the instructions of the party and government, as well as the Main Political Directorate of the Army . Then Motyl turned to Lenfilm , where he received permission to shoot. However, after a while the script was stopped again and completely closed by order of the directorate for the same reasons as at Mosfilm. An additional barrier was the participation in the writing of the script by Bulat Okudzhava, which, according to Motyl, was "under suspicion", as he did not obey anyone, and his books were subjected to harsh criticism of the press ^[1] .

The filming process was started due to chance. Another Motyl film ( Children of the Pamirs ) was nominated for the Lenin Prize , but during the discussion, Deputy Head of the Department of Culture of the CPSU Central Committee Philip Ermash made a speech that it would be wrong to award the prize, since Mirshakar , the author of the poem that formed the basis of the script already had a Stalin Prize . Ermash also made slanderous statements about Vladimir Motyl, which he later learned. Threatening an official with a complaint to the Central Committee of the CPSU, Motyl obtained permission to shoot the film "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha" ^[1] .

Casting

Motyl initially planned to bring Oleg Dal along with other candidates to work on the film. Despite the small resemblance to the character, Dahl, who liked the director for roles in the Sovremennik Theater, approached internally. From the first meeting, the artist surprised the director, having come dressed in a defiant bright crimson jacket. Despite the then lack of popularity and a large number of proposals, Dahl kept himself very independent and indulgently agreed to participate in the film. Having failed the first and second samples due to problems with alcohol, Dahl almost lost his role, as Lenfilm was against his statement precisely for these reasons. The bloodworm, who saw in Dal “a sniper choice for the role of Kolyshkin,” persuaded Dahl to take tests in the normal state, and for the third time Oleg passed them brilliantly ^[1] . Subsequently, Dahl admitted to Motyl that, being expelled from all theaters for disruption of performances, he suffered very much without work, and the role of Kolyshkin became “salvation” for him ^[3] .

While working on the script, both authors admitted to each other that in their youth they were thin and awkward and fell in love with strong, powerful girls and spoke extremely mockingly to them ^[3] . In this regard, the image of Zhenechka Zemlyanikina in the imagination of Vladimir Motyl was formed in advance: the director was looking for a charming and attractive woman, “a little rude in appearance”. Contrary to the point of view of the leaders of Lenfilm , who insisted on the candidacy of Natalya Kustinskaya , Motyl considered the actress to be “infinitely distant” from the front-line soldier conceived by him, as “there was no organic rudeness of the warring signalman” ^[2] . After a long search, the director found Galina Figlovskaya through the leaders of the Shchukin school , who helped with the search among talented but little-known recent graduates. At that time, Figlovskaya did not work on stage, and it was not easy to find her. According to Motyl's memoirs, the institution where Galina Viktorovna worked was closed, and the director managed to find her only thanks to the help of her friends. In the film crew, many sympathized with the actress, and Dahl, unlike his timid character, made fun of Figlovskaya in every possible way, calling her “Fig” ^[2] .

Mikhail Kokshenov definitely "got" into the image of Zakhar Kosykh the first time. The 102-pound actor, for whom the costumers had to alter the gymnast and jodhpurs , looked the exact opposite of the puny Dahl, but despite this contrast, they became friends during the shoot. Kokshenov also partially edited his role: the actor liked to go to the pubs and listen to folk speech, which he then used to create the image of his character. Later, Mikhail Kokshenov said that often in everyday situations he used the image of an impudent commoner attached to him, and Bulat Okudzhava presented the actor with a book with the inscription: “Misha Kokshenov, a well-disguised intellectual” ^{[2] [4]} . Vladimir Motyl jokingly characterized the actor, saying: “One hundred and three kilograms in weight, and not a single thought in my eyes - civilization passed by” ^[4] .

Mark Bernes was attracted to the role of “a colonel who looked like an artist Mark Bernes from Odessa ”; Germans played students of Leningrad University from the GDR ^[2] .

Music

The main musical theme of the film - “The Drops of the Danish King ” - was written on a poem by Bulat Okudzhava by composer Isaac Schwartz , who subsequently worked more than once with Vladimir Motyl, in particular in the films “ White Sun of the Desert ” (1970) and “ Star of Captivating Happiness ” ( 1975). Subsequently, Schwartz said that before starting work, he was very worried, because he was afraid to fake, working with Okudzhava. After reviewing the material for the film, the composer wrote a song that began with peppy notes, and towards the end turned into a sad melody ^[5] . Okudzhava really liked the resulting work, and he himself decided to perform it ^[6] . In a duet with Okudzhava, this song was sung by Alexander Kavalerov , who played the cameo role of a soldier in the film ^{[7] [8]} .

Filming

Filming took place mainly in Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region , some episodes were filmed in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad region . The director tried not to focus on battle scenes, considering it more important to penetrate the inner world of heroes. The missile units that took part in the film, due to their secrecy, were used to a limited extent. By order of the command, the cars advanced into a given square and after shooting the scene moved to classified positions ^[2] .

In between filming, Oleg Dal, Pavel Morozenko and Mikhail Kokshenov walked around the city in military uniforms of the 1943 model, as a result of which the local population often mistook them for military service soldiers. During one of the trips to the market, the actors drank and went to rest on the banks of the river Pregolya . Seeing a yellow rocket signaling the start of filming ^[4] , the actors ignored the signal, for which Vladimir Motyl “punished” them, forcing them to “retake” the take many times, without saying that the camera was turned off all the time ^[4] . There were other curious cases: the Dal and Kokshenov who drove the Willis in full uniform (including machine guns) repeatedly attracted the attention of a military patrol. Actors answered questions of the military, naming non-existent and absurd troops, such as "A separate part of the railway fleet" or "Naval cavalry." Once Kokshenov imitated the pursuit of Dahl with screams and firing into the air, as a result of which local residents who decided to help almost injured the “fugitive” ^[2] .

There was also an incident related to alcohol on the set: having rude an officer on duty at the hotel, Oleg Dal got into the police for fifteen days “for hooliganism” ^[3] . Bloodworm agreed with the head of the department, and the actor was escorted in the morning to the set, and again in the evening they were taken to the "prison". The gentle dialogue of Zhenya Kolyshkin, who was sitting on guardhouse, over the phone with Zhenechka was filmed at that time ^[1] .

A difficult fate awaited the film: the film was deemed "harmful", which became the reason for the first ban on the profession for the director. The press was full of harsh and offensive comments, the film went on the “third screen” in clubs and outlying cinemas, but it was very successful with the audience. The picture hit the wide screen only thanks to the sailors of the Baltic and Northern Fleets , among which the songs of Bulat Okudzhava were popular. Vladimir Motyl visited the presentation of the film in Severomorsk and Murmansk and, having received the stormy approval of the personnel, turned to the admirals with a request to write an official review about the film. Those readily responded. Having collected many such reviews, Motyl sent a telegram to the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Kosygin , who, although he was indifferent to the film, regarded it as a profitable product that would attract a large number of viewers ^[2] .

The official film premiere of the film in the USSR took place on August 21, 1967. The audience of the picture as a result amounted to more than twenty-four and a half million moviegoers.

Despite the success of the viewer, the film seriously slowed down the career of its creator, who actually fell under the ban as a director. According to Motyl's recollections, for forty years of working in the cinema, he put on only one film in four to five years, since the film bosses, as a rule, did not give permission for his screenwriting applications. For example, his application for the film "Comet, My Fate" about Ivan Annenkov was closed, although then this topic was realized in the film " Star of captivating happiness " (1975) ^[1] .

A tragic fate awaited many actors: Mark Bernes died two years after the premiere, Oleg Dal died at the age of 39, Galina Figlovskaya was seriously ill in the following years and died of a severe attack of polyarthritis , Pavel Morozenko (performer of the role of Alexei Zyryanov) drowned at the age of 52 years ^[2] .

The movie was released on a licensed DVD by CP Digital .

Jacob Groisman, Galina Kornilova. Meetings in the waiting room. Memories of Damascus. - Nizhny Novgorod , 2003 . - 476 p. - ISBN 5-89533-084-3 .

• “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” on the site “Encyclopedia of Russian Cinema”.
• “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” ” (neopr.) . Online encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius. Date of treatment November 19, 2012. Archived November 25, 2012.
• “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha” (English) on the Internet Movie Database
• “Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha.” // vladimir-motyl.ru