Funny stars

Kiev duet of beginners entertainers - Tarapunka and Plug goes to Moscow to participate in the All-Union competition of young pop artists. On the train, their coupe neighbors turn out to be a middle-aged married couple, with a close acquaintance - from careerists, which confirms the topicality of the prepared room.
The performance of the contestants soon finds the support of the majority of the jury, but there is an intrigue right there - recognized masters of the conference are in no hurry to open the way for young competitors.
In the bustle of the capital, Tarapunku and Plugs are waiting for extraordinary adventures, as well as new acquaintances. As soon as the occasion helps the people of Kiev to re-enter the stage and hold a concert with the most popular pop and film artists.

• Yuriy Timoshenko - Tarapunka , contestant
• Efim Berezin - Plug , contestant
• Leo of Worlds - Worlds , member of the jury
• Mark Novitsky - Novitsky , member of the jury
• Nikolay Smirnov-Sokolsky - Nikolay Pavlovich , chairman of the jury
• Green, Rina - Natasha , doll
• Maria Mironova - Mironova , wife of a bureaucrat
• Alexander Menaker - Menaker , bureaucrat on the train
• Pavel Tarasov - head of the pop contest
• Georgy Sorokin - Sergey Alekseevich , director, staging V. Mayakovsky’s play “The Bath”, and member of the jury of the pop contest
• Claudia Shulzhenko - Shulzhenko, sings the songs "Silence" and "Stars of the sweet Homeland"
• Leonid Utesov - Utesov, performed by Potpourri from his songs of past years and “Song of the company singing”

• Screenplay - Eugene Pomeshchikov , Victor Tipot
• Stage Director: Vera Stroeva
• Director of photography - Mikhail Gindin , Vladimir Nikolaev
• Artists - Pyotr Kiselev , Evgeny Serganov
• Composers - Isaac Dunaevsky (songwriter), Alexander Tsfasman
• Lyrics - Mikhail Matusovsky
• Directors - Oleg Lentsius, Valentina Kuznetsova
• Sound engineer - Victor Zorin
• Costume Designer - Nadezhda Buzina
• Choreographers - Galina Shakhovskaya , Victor Vronsky
• Combined Shooting:
  Operators - Boris Gorbachev , Alexander Renkov
  Artist - Nikolay Zvonarev
• Editors - Ekaterina Ovsyannikova, Lidia Lysenkova
• Director of the picture - Valentin Maslov

"Morning Song"
"Doll's Song"
"Silence"
"Stars of a sweet Motherland"
"Song of the company humming"

Musical accompaniment:
- Orchestra of the Main Directorate of Cinematography of the USSR, State Variety Orchestra of the RSFSR (conductor: Vadim Ludvikovsky );
- All-Union Radio Chorus under the control of Claudius Birds ^[1] .

The director's script of the film was ready at the end of October 1953. This was preceded by a great work of the creative team.

“A film concert should not be a collection of even the best and most varied numbers, but an integral piece ...
According to the original plans of the scriptwriters, Claudia Shulzhenko was supposed to perform songs already familiar to the audience in the film. "Eugene Pomeshchikov and Vladimir Tipot wrote a large stage in which they depicted the singer's performance as they imagined it."

- about the initial version of the script in the book of G. A. Skorokhodov “Three drives of Claudia Shulzhenko” ^[2]

Shulzhenko herself, however, considered that appearing in front of a huge audience with a well-known repertoire was inappropriate, and shared her thoughts with Vera Stroeva . She agreed, and the scriptwriters began to rework the script. Shulzhenko offered to turn to Isaac Dunaevsky , whom they had known since the 1930s when working on M. Averbakh 's film “Who is Your Friend” . Very busy working on the operetta White Acacia, the composer nevertheless agreed to compose several songs:

The remaining twelve instrumental pieces in the rhythms of fast and slow foxtrot, tango, boston waltz, rumba, etc., were written by Alexander Tsfasman . All of them were recorded with a jazz orchestra under the direction of the author even before the filming began ^[2] .

According to the memoirs of Claudia Shulzhenko , pavilion shootings were mainly held at night ^[2] . Complex staging visual tasks were solved using combined filming :
- Rina Zelena’s number, which really turned out to be the size of a baby doll;
- “meeting” of L. Utesov with the characters of his songs, in particular, Kostya from “Happy Guys” ;
- finally, all kinds of movie tricks in the satirical sketch of Tarapunka and Plugs on the theme of modern abstract painting.

One way or another, the final part of the film turned into a sequence of separate, almost unrelated numbers, which contradicted the director’s original plan. Then Shulzhenko proposed a rehearsal scene, where she herself could meet with the concert hosts, just talk to them. For the new episode, another song was needed, and Shulzhenko herself turned to Dunaevsky ^[2] .

“In a few days,” recalled Klavdia Ivanovna, “Dunaevsky called me:
“Come, I seem to have gotten a good tune.”

- from the chapter “Do not scare off charm ...” ^[2]

And then Matusovsky wrote words to her. So the waltz “Silence” was born, which later became one of the most beloved works of K. Shulzhenko ^[2] .

Important visual episodes in kind were also resolved using combined filming:
- Stalin's skyscrapers under construction, which are a new image of post-war Moscow, are still under construction, the whole country could see on the screen without cranes.
- “Flights” by Mirov and Novitsky on an attraction in a park, shot using two wanderings using the technology of a wandering mask — the first part, together with close-ups of the actors, were previously shot on “Mosfilm” in front of the infra-screen ;
- finally, a comic episode with twin acrobats: an attentive viewer could not help but notice the exaggerated speed of performing tricks, which happens when shooting is carried out with a reduced frame rate.

He did not go off the screen for a long time, dozens of newspapers published rave (to varying degrees) reviews. The reason for its success can hardly be explained by the lack of new musical and comedy tapes in those years. The film attracted the viewer primarily with a parade of their favorite pop stars and wonderful music.

- G. A. Skorokhodov “Three drives of Claudia Shulzhenko” ^[2]

Since the premiere on July 19, 1954, the picture was watched by 31.5 million Soviet viewers, at the end of the year she took 5th place at the box office.

In the same year, a tape called “Vidám csillagok” was seen in Hungary, and in 1955 it was shown as “Variety Stars” in the USA ^[4] .

• G.A. Skorokhodov . Three drives of Claudia Shulzhenko. - Anniversaries. - Eksmo ; Algorithm (Moscow), 2006 .-- 255 p. - ISBN 5-699-15012-9 .
• B.K. Gorbachev . The technique of combined shooting / Ed. L.O. Eisymont. - Moscow: Art , 1958. - S. 248. - 278 p. - 3000 copies.
• Soviet feature films. Annotated catalog / Comp. N. A. Glagoleva, M. Kh. Zak, A. V. Macheret , L. A. Parfyonov , V. M. Rozina, E. L. Sosnovsky, P. V. Fionov, O. V. Yakubovich, ed. A. V. Machereta et al. - Moscow: Art , 1961. - T. 2: Sound films (1930-1957). - S. 525. - 784 p. - 3000 copies.

• "Funny Stars" Encyclopedia of Cinema (2010)
• Variety Stars on the Internet Movie Database