Way to the pier

Vaska ( Alexander Metelkin ), fifteen and a half years old, gets on the rescue tug “Kola”. The goal of Vaska is to get to Murmansk .

In the first minutes on the ship he saw a stern and taciturn boatswain Zosima Semenovich Wolverine ( Boris Andreev ). Vaska sympathizes with the boatswain. There was a dispute between the boatswain and Marat Chepin ( Valentin Nikulin ): whoever loses the table football game should shave off half the mustache, and not touch the other half before leaving Murmansk. At the time of summing up the game, Vaska supports the boatswain, and he wins the argument.

Restless Vaska at the previous place of work managed to break the diesel engine. He does not leave his passion for learning technology in tow. Nevertheless, he accidentally floods the cabin of the starpom , and at the same time falls overboard. The boatswain Wolverine jumps overboard and rescues Vaska. The captain decides to write Vaska ashore, but Vaska asks to leave him in tow, because he wants to go on it and be a lifeguard. Vaska is left in tow by an apprentice minder .

"Kola" should go to the distant islands behind the ship "Polotsk", which has been damaged there since the Great Patriotic War . Before entering the sea, Wolverine quarrels with a front-line friend, gets drunk and finds himself in a sobering-up center , where he comes across a drunkard Velikankin ( George Vitsin ). The old man has to bail out Wolverine from the detoxification center.

Wolverine goes from a detox to the port and meets Mary ( Lyubov Sokolova ), who once worked on a seiner with him, along the way. Maria says that she has a son, Andrei, from him. Zosima is lost in thought. Maria leaves the bus, but on the evening of the same day, Wolverine finds her. They come to Mary’s home, Wolverine wants to see his son, but doesn’t find him at home - he ran away to dance. Wolverine is trying to explain herself to Maria, to get her to forgive and accept him again, but the conversation does not work.

The tugboat goes to sea and after some time it moors to the Polotsk. The captain of Kola Gastev ( Oleg Zhakov ) once went on this ship with Wolverine. The boatswain with the captain visiting the old ship, recalling the dead comrades.

A team led by Wolverine landed on Polotsk. The team consists of Vaska, Chepin, Bruno ( Bruno Oya ). The vessel gives a leak, and all the way they must pump out water and stand at the helm. Ships set off. "Polotsk" does not have its own move and goes in tow for the "Cola". Send a storm warning. At Polotsk, a pump breaks down, pumping water. The boatswain descends into the hold to Vaska to find out how things are. A conversation ensues, and the boatswain, who has managed to fall in love with Vaska, promises to introduce him to his son upon returning to Murmansk.

Despite the storm, Wolverine reports to the Coke that everything is in order and the ship is ready to go.

A radiogram arrives that thirty miles from the Kola, the Odessa timber carrier is dying: it has lost its course and is being carried by storm to the Kanin reefs. The Cola captain contacts Wolverine and tells him everything. They have only one way out: “Kola” should leave “Polotsk” and go at full speed to save the timber carrier. At the same time, if the “Polotsk” is not kept nose to the wave, it will lie on board and begin to scoop up water, and this is certain death for the ship and for the crew. Wolverine does not want to discuss this with the team, but the walkie-talkie is turned on, and the team (except Vaska, who is busy in the hold of the pump) learns about everything. Wolverine is against giving the tow rope - he “played enough with death”, he must “return to his pier.”

At such an acute moment, the team is divided into two camps: Bruno and Chepin for giving the cable, Vaska supports Wolverine. Chepin passionately calls for self-sacrifice in the name of saving human lives, Wolverine objects to him fiercely, and then Vaska utters only one phrase: "I would not like to have such a father." Hearing it, Wolverine himself makes a decision and cuts the cable - now Kola can go to the rescue truck in full swing.

Wolverine gives orders in the event of the death of the ship: "Whoever throws him alive ashore, go right, there is a lighthouse, you will be saved there."

Polotsk throws it onto the rocks, almost the entire ship goes under water, only the bow and the deckhouse are on the surface. Three team members are alive, although they freeze in an icy wind. And the mortally wounded Wolverine (he hit his head when he tried to fix the cable on the shore) is dying, although help is already close.

• Boris Andreev - Zosima Semenovich Wolverine, boatswain of "Cola"
• Oleg Zhakov - George A. Gastev, captain of the rescue ship "Kola"
• Lyubov Sokolova - Maria
• Alexander Metelkin - Vaska Metelkin
• Valentin Nikulin - Marat Chepin
• Bruno Oia - Bruno
• Ada Sheremetev - Mike, cook
• Igor Bogolyubov - Gennady Borisovich, the head
• Victor Kolpakov - the old man
• George Vitsin - alcoholic Velikankin
• Grigory Gai - Anton Nikiforov, one-armed Wolverine fellow soldier
• Lyudmila Ivanova - the wife of one-armed
• Semyon Kolchenaev - Gerasim, Chukchi hunter
• Olga Markina - Vaska's mother
• Pavel Vinnik - radio operator
• Aleksey Bakhar - lieutenant of the militia on duty in the detoxification center
• Alexander Brodsky - a sailor in the port
• Valery Babyatinsky - a young sailor (uncredited)
• Sergey Nikonenko - on duty in the detox (not indicated in credits)

• Stage Director: George Danelia
• Screenwriter: Viktor Konetsky
• Operator: Anatoly Nitochkin
• Artist: Alexander Borisov
• Composer: Andrey Petrov
• Director: L. Basov
• Editor: M. Kachalova
• Sound engineer: E. Fedorov
• Combined Shooting:
  • Operator: Boris Travkin
  • Artist: M. Semenov
    • Artist's Assistant: Eduard Malikov (uncredited)
• Director-editor: M. Timofeeva
• The second operator: K. Novikov
• Consultant: V. Stulov
• Makeup: L. Grushina
• Set Designer: Yuri Kladienko
• Costumes: L. Mochalina, M. Filippova
• Director of the picture: Dmitry Salbstein
• State Symphony Orchestra of Cinematography
  • Conductor: Yuri Silantiev

• This is the second full-length work of George Danelia .
• Most of the filming took place in Murmansk .
• The director took the script of Konetsky in the First Creative Association. Later, the writer, who lived in Leningrad, came to Moscow to sign the contract, and in the evening he came to Danelia to get acquainted. Konetsky took offense at Danelia, learning that he was more interested in the mood and surroundings on the ship than the story of Wolverine. ^[one]
• Konetskiy and Danelia spent two and a half months in the same cabin on the Levanevsky dry cargo ship, studying the scenario. ^[one]
• “Way to the pier” is the first joint work of Danelia and composer Andrei Petrov . The music editor of Mosfilm , Raisa Lukina, recommended him to Danelia. Petrov came from Leningrad to Moscow, showed Danelia the first sketches of the main theme, but the director did not accept the presented version. The song’s melody was accepted only from the thirteenth time, however, the music editor did not like the music editor, who called it “not Soviet”. The situation at the suggestion of Raisa Lukina was saved by George Danelia himself, saying that since the events take place in the Arctic, the filmmakers used the tunes of the Chukchi folk songs. Poems were written by a famous poet, former sailor Grigory Pozhenyan . At the same time, there were three measures in Petrov’s melody, and 1 less in Pozhenyan’s verses. The poet demanded that Petrov throw out an extra beat. Upon learning of this, Andrei Pavlovich sent a telegram:

Moscow. Mosfilm. Danelia I wrote thirteen variations of the melody, let this Zhezhenyan replace one word!

- Danelia G. N. Stowaway passenger: “stories” of the film director. - M .: Eksmo, 2006

Upon learning of the telegram, Grigory Mikhailovich was furious and eager to Leningrad to deal with the composer "like a man." The conflict was settled - Pozhenyan was told that the telegraph agency had mixed up the name. As a result, the song, which later became known as the “ Song of a Friend ”, was left unchanged, and in the film it was sung by actors Valentin Nikulin and Bruno Oya. ^[1] Later, the song was performed by Eduard Gil , Muslim Magomayev , Oleg Anofriev , in “ Old Songs about the Essentials ” - Nikolai Rastorguev and in French - Enrico Masias .

Viktor Konetsky complained in his wandering novel “For Good Hope”: “The only modern tragedy that smells of Shakespeare,“ The Way to the Pier, ”was corrupted by composer Andrei Petrov and poet Pozhenyan. They composed a popular song with an artistic whistle. To make a person remember the tragedy, I have to say: “Remember, there is a song:“ ... my friend - my third shoulder - will always be with me ... ”” - “Ah!” the viewer says. “How so! I remember!” Indeed, try to forget this - the third shoulder! From what place did it grow AET? " ^[2]

• Actor Boris Andreev in a scene where a boatswain on the shore beats the waves with his feet, starred without an understudy. The episode was shot on Kildin , because in Murmansk there was no sea, but a bay. They took 14 takes, it was very cold, and Andreev’s clothes were all wet. ^[one]

• In Murmansk, in 2016, a monument to the Sea Wolf was erected - a park sculpture that looks like the actor Boris Andreev in the image of the main character of the film - the boatswain Zosima Semenovich Wolverine. ^[3]

• First flight

• The way to the pier (Russian) . Movie catalog . FSUE “ Mosfilm Cinema Concern ”. Date accessed June 7, 2019. Archived January 5, 2019.
• Dmitry Ermolaev. How did the "Way to the pier" (rus.) . The newspaper " Evening Murmansk " (11.29.2013). Date of treatment June 7, 2019.