12 films by Leonid Gaidai that you want to watch

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Bright jokes, social satire and charming heroes are waiting for you.

1. A groom from the other world

• USSR, 1958.
• Comedy.
• Duration: 51 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 7, 6.

The head of the KUKU (Shrub Management of Resort Establishments) Semyon Danilovich Petukhov is leaving for three days to his fiancee. Returning to work, the hero learns that he is considered dead and is about to bury him. The thing is that a pickpocket stole his documents and was run over by a car. It would seem that it is easy for Petukhov to prove the obvious: in fact, he is alive. But, like a typical bureaucrat, he decides to document that he is not dead.

Already in his first works, Leonid Gaidai ridiculed the shortcomings of Soviet society. "The Bridegroom from the Other World" is devoted to bureaucracy and situations when the papers are more significant than the person himself.

The party leadership was not happy with such vivid satire, and the film was heavily censored. The picture was reduced to a short one and even some storylines were thrown out of it. The stories of the characters played by Sergei Filippov, Faina Ranevskaya and Evgeny Morgunov went under the knife.

2. Dog Watchdog and unusual cross

• USSR, 1961.
• Comedy.
• Duration: 10 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 1.

A trio of unlucky poachers decide to fish with explosives. But the dog Watchdog, who obediently brings a stick to the criminals, returns them a burning stick of dynamite. Now violators have to save themselves.

From this work, two of the most recognizable features appeared in Gaidai's work. First, he started producing satirical short films. "The Watchdog Dog and the Unusual Cross" was included in the almanac "Quite Seriously", and later the director himself compiled collections of such stories. And secondly, the trinity of Coward, Goonies and Experienced performed by Georgy Vitsin, Yuri Nikulin and Yevgeny Morgunov regularly began to appear in his paintings.

3. Moonshiners

• USSR, 1962.
• Comedy.
• Duration: 19 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 2.

Literally a few months after Dog Barbosa, the second short film about the ridiculous trinity came out. This time Coward, Goonies and Experienced make moonshine for sale, and then decide to try the product.

Interestingly, after the first films, Gaidai did not plan to return the popular trio in his further works. And the actors themselves were afraid that they would be remembered only for these images. But the general love of the audience played a role.

4. Business people

• USSR, 1963.
• Comedy, drama.
• Duration: 84 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 1.

A collection of three short stories based on the stories of the writer O. Henry. The first story is about bandits who are hiding with prey, but lose one horse. The second tells about a criminal who wants to rob a house, but collides with the owner and realizes that they have the same problems. And in the third, a couple of scammers steal a child to get a ransom, but it soon turns out that the boy is a real monster.

Leonid Gaidai shot films not only according to modern scripts. After "Business People", he repeatedly turned to classical works. But this collection looks unusual even for him. After all, the first part is a dark tragic story. And only then the plot turns into a comedy typical for the director.

5. Operation "Y" and other adventures of Shurik

• USSR, 1965.
• Comedy, crime.
• Duration: 95 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 7.

A modest but witty student Shurik finds himself in various amazing situations. Either he undertakes to re-educate his partner at a construction site, then he prepares for the exam, in parallel falling in love with a new acquaintance. And in the finale, the hero confronts the criminals who decided to imitate a robbery of a warehouse.

After the success of Business People, Gaidai decided to make another almanac of short stories, but on a modern theme. He took as a basis the script by Yakov Kostyukovsky and Maurice Slobodsky "Frivolous Stories" about a student named Vladik. Later, the director will repeatedly collaborate with these authors, although this time he changed the plot almost beyond recognition. By the way, according to rumors, the hero had to be renamed because of fears that in Vladik they would see hints of Lenin.

The final story, which gave the name to the entire film, Gaidai invented himself, turning it into a crossover with the audience's favorite trinity of criminals. And on the set, he allowed the actors to improvise and invent jokes themselves. So, for example, the scene with Nikulin's "injury" was born, where instead of blood there is red wine.

6. Prisoner of the Caucasus, or Shurik's New Adventures

• USSR, 1967.
• Comedy, adventure.
• Duration: 82 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 4.

Student Shurik goes to the Caucasus to collect local folklore. There he meets the girl Nina, and new acquaintances quickly grow closer. But it turns out that the local official Saakhov wanted to marry the young beauty. With the help of his uncle Nina, the hero decided to simply steal the bride.

Leonid Gaidai conceived this plot at the beginning of work on "Operation Y", planning to tell a few more stories about Shurik. But he soon realized that he had completely exhausted the topic of the student's adventures, and stopped at only one full-length picture. At the same time, it was "Prisoner of the Caucasus" that became one of the director's most popular works.

In part, the secret of the film's success is that the author combined topical satire and familiar characters with the techniques of classic silent comedy in the style of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Therefore, the tape turned out to be filled with all sorts of gags, complex tricks and unusual antics of the characters.

7. Diamond hand

• USSR, 1969.
• Comedy, adventure, crime.
• Duration: 94 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 5.

An exemplary family man Semyon Semyonovich Gorbunkov goes on a cruise on the ship "Mikhail Svetlov". He meets the stylish Gesha, who turns out to be a smuggler who transported jewelry to the USSR. During a walk in Istanbul, due to several coincidences, the criminal's accomplices hide gold and diamonds in plaster of Paris to Gorbunkov. Now he must help the Soviet police find the villains.

The plot of this film was again invented by Leonid Gaidai with his regular screenwriters Yakov Kostyukovsky and Maurice Slobodsky. In those years, Soviet newspapers did write a lot about smugglers, and there were a lot of films about the police who were catching them in the movies. The authors decided to make a parody of such stories.

While working on this film, the director once again faced censorship. Gaidai was demanded to increase the importance of the Soviet militia in the plot. In addition, they scolded the image of Nonna Mordyukova, who played the house manager. But the author took a cunning move. At the end of the picture, he inserted a nuclear explosion, which most of all outraged the officials. They demanded to cut out a gloomy and inappropriate moment, and they forgot about most of the other problems.

8.12 chairs

• USSR, 1971.
• Comedy, adventure.
• Duration: 153 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 2.

Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov learns from his dying mother-in-law that she hid the jewelry in one of the twelve chairs of the living room set. He tries to find the treasured treasure, and the witty and charming swindler Ostap Bender is taken to help him. But in parallel with the heroes, Father Fyodor, who overheard the woman's confession, goes in search of them.

Leonid Gaidai wanted to make a film based on the book "12 Chairs" by Ilf and Petrov while he was still working on "Prisoner of the Caucasus". But exactly at the same time Mikhail Schweitzer released the Golden Calf, and the project had to be postponed for several years. Interestingly, more than a dozen adaptations of the famous book have already been released around the world. There was even a Swedish painting "Seven Black Bras", where the jewelry was hidden in underwear.

But Gaidai's version is considered one of the most successful. He carefully treated the original source and at the same time supplemented the plot with his trademark comedy techniques. The director invited the Georgian actor Archil Gomiashvili to play the main role. By the way, he had to be re-voiced: Bender speaks in the voice of Yuri Sarantsev. The role of Kisa was played by Sergei Filippov, who during the filming overcame terrible headaches associated with a tumor.

As a result, a great comedy came out, which became the leader of the Soviet box office and is still considered one of the best adaptations of the novel by Ilf and Petrov.

9. Ivan Vasilievich changes his profession

• USSR, 1973.
• Comedy, fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 88 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 7.

Engineer Alexander Timofeev invents a time machine and decides to test it. By coincidence, the house manager Ivan Vasilyevich Bunsha and the house thief Georges Miloslavsky are nearby. They are transferred to the 16th century, and Tsar Ivan the Terrible gets stuck in modern Moscow. Now Timofeev needs to somehow return the heroes to their places.

Another adaptation of the classics from Leonid Gaidai. Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the play "Ivan Vasilyevich" back in the 1930s, but for censorship reasons it was never staged during the author's lifetime. The director modernized the action, keeping the plot close to the original.

Gaidai treated the image of Timofeev ironically, as if returning the matured Shurik performed by Alexander Demyanenko to his film. Although the role was originally written for Yuri Nikulin. He refused to act, believing that the tape would not be released anyway. "Ivan Vasilyevich" really suffered from censorship edits: the author was forced to cut out comical episodes with Ivan the Terrible, as well as remove several of the most provocative phrases.

But the picture still came out in cinemas and, like several of Gaidai's previous works, became the leader of the box office and a real legend.

10. It can't be

• USSR, 1975.
• Comedy, melodrama.
• Duration: 100 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 8, 1.

Three short stories are based on the works of Mikhail Zoshchenko. The first tells the story of a store manager who is summoned for questioning. The second reveals a complex pattern of love relationships between six people. And in the final, the groom comes to the wedding and cannot recognize his bride.

In the tape "It can't be!" Leonid Gaidai returned to short films. Each episode lasts about half an hour, but at the same time tells a full-fledged funny story. A separate plus is that the director managed to collect the best actors: Mikhail Pugovkin, Vyacheslav Nevinny, Oleg Dal, Leonid Kuravlev. Of the author's favorites, only Yuri Nikulin refused the role: he was supposed to play the father of the bride in the last part. He was replaced by Georgy Vitsin.

11. For matches

• USSR, Finland, 1980.
• Comedy, adventure.
• Duration: 100 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 7, 5.

One day, Ihalainen's wife was about to brew coffee and found that matches in their house had run out. She sent her husband to a neighbor, but on the way he met an old friend and decided to help him get married to the bride. In a strange way, the usual trip for matches turned into a long and funny trip for friends.

This picture, based on the story of the same name by Maya Lassila, Gaidai filmed with his colleague Risto Orko in Finland with the participation of local actors. At that time, officials tried to maintain friendly relations with neighbors and therefore sent the director on a creative trip abroad. Therefore, the film exists in two versions: Russian and Finnish, and even the songs have been re-dubbed.

The work "Behind the Matches" is often criticized for secondary humor and a theme not too close to the director. But the charm of Evgeny Leonov and Vyacheslav Nevinny, who played the main roles, together with the incredible adventures of their heroes, make up for all the shortcomings. The viewer can simply have fun throughout the film.

12. Sportloto-82

• USSR, 1982.
• Comedy, adventure.
• Duration: 89 minutes.
• "KinoPoisk": 7, 7.

Young Kostya Lukov goes by train to Yuzhnogorsk. Having accidentally eaten the provisions of his fellow traveler, he buys a Sportloto ticket for her as an excuse. It soon turns out that the girl has won the main prize. But the ticket was accidentally put in someone else's book, and now the heroes have to find it. The situation is complicated by the fact that one of the fellow travelers - speculator San Sanych - also goes in search of a win.

"Sportloto-82" is the last film by Leonid Gaidai, which gained massive popularity and became the leader of the Soviet distribution. Self-repetition is already felt in the picture: as if the characters of the "Caucasian Captive" were placed in the plot of "12 Chairs". Still, the audience liked the director's eccentric humor, and many of the jokes went to the people.