“A detective without a chase is like a life without love.” 60 Years of the Comedy “Beware of the Car”

Tragicomedy-detective, one of the most beloved in the history of Soviet cinema: this year, the 60th anniversary of Eldar Ryazanov’s painting “Beware of the Car”, the first of a series of many film stories created in tandem with screenwriter Emil Braginsky. The plot of the modest and inconspicuous insurance agent Yuri Detochkin, who is driven by a thirst for justice on the path of crime, is based on the popular urban legend of the 1960s about the modern Robin Hood, who allegedly steals cars from dishonest people, bribers and speculators, and spends money on good deeds. Of course, in reality, no such events did not happen, but the retelling of an amusing fiction was enough to give birth to the idea of a movie.

The tale about the noble hijacker was brought from the tour by the famous clown and actor Yuri Nikulin and shared with Eldar Ryazanov. The director was excited by the idea on the basis of such a curious plot to make a movie - and the main character should play, in his opinion, Nikulin: the face of the naive good man was quite suitable to the story that Ryazanov had already built in his head. We wanted to make a kind, sad comedy about a good man who seems abnormal, but in fact he is more normal than many others. This man is a big, honest child. His eyes are wide open to the world, his reactions are direct, his words are simple-minded, the restraining centers do not interfere with his sincere impulses. We gave him the name Detochkin.” So Braginsky and Ryazanov created the first version of the script under the working title “Stolen the car” and in early 1963 presented in Goskino. The story as a whole liked, Nikulin successfully passed the test paired with Yuri Yakovlev, who was expected to play the role of investigator Podberezov, but ... the leadership of the department feared that Soviet citizens, having watched a movie, will begin to massively steal cars. After all, the hero - a charming, sweet, kind person - was a criminal after all! Moreover, Nikulin had to leave for six months with the circus on tour in Africa.

Braginsky and Ryazanov did not become discouraged and rewrote their script, turning it into a story, which was accepted for publication by the magazine “Young Guard”. Readers accepted the work well, and in the spring of 1964 the authors returned to the State Film Committee, but with a proposal to film the story. This time they got a good shot. However, Nikulin again went on a long tour, and Ryazanov no longer considered him. Leonid Bykov seemed suitable to the director, but was also busy. As a result, anyone was not tried on Detochkin: Mikhail Derzhavin, Vasily Lanovoy, Leonid Kuravlev, Alexander Belyavsky ... The last samples were taken with Leningrad Innokenty Smoktunovsky, and Ryazanov liked him more than anyone else. But it was necessary to start work quickly, and Smoktunovsky, although he was interested in the role, was already busy in two films, he was unwell from fatigue, and he repulsed a telegram to Mosfilm with a refusal.

In despair, Ryazanov tried Oleg Efremov, who madly liked the role of Detochkin. But Efremov on the screen was not naive enough and simple-minded. The artist of the film Boris Nemechek, looking at the samples, said: “It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing!” And Efremov was offered to play the investigator, behind the external good-heartedness of which there is an iron will. And Yuri Yakovlev, previously considered the main candidate for the role of Podberezov, undertook his soft, intelligent voice to read the voiceover text from the author. By the end of June, the outlines of the future film found specifics: the charming fraudster Semixvetov - Andrei Mironov, his wife - Tatiana Gavrilova, the soldier-father-in-law - Anatoly Papanov, Detochkin's mother - Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya (years later Ryazanov will call her again, for the role of the mother of Zhenya Lukashin in the "Irony of Fate"), the bride of the hero Lyub - Olga Aroseva, the traffic police inspector - Georgy Zhzhenov, the director of the amateur theater, where Detochkin and Podberezvikov meet. All the roles were painted and approved, except for the main one: the director still did not have a pretty hijacker.

Ryazanov persistently wanted to shoot only Smoktunovsky. He used the help of Georgy Zhzhenov, with whom the actor was friends since 1946, but Zhzhenov could not persuade Smoktunovsky. Then the director gathered and went to Leningrad himself. Arriving in a terrible downpour, he found out that the actor is still unwell and that he lives in a dacha 100 km from the city. Ryazanov, who had nothing to lose, went to the dacha: When I entered, Innokenty Mikhailovich was asleep. The noise woke him up. He woke up - in the doorway stood a fat man in a cloak, from which water flowed. The last thing he expected to see was me in his house. He could not believe his eyes, but it was not a nightmare, but, as he later said, it was a nightmare reality.

To convince Smoktunovsky to act as the director still managed. But Ryazanov did not believe the artist at his word, demanding a receipt: “I, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, undertake not later than August 20 to come to Moscow and start filming as Detochkin in the film Beware of the Car.” Smoktunovsky, like his screen bride Olga Aroseva, had to learn how to drive for the sake of filming, and if he was an ordinary car, then she was a trolleybus. And they did ride the streets themselves, although in complex stunt scenes Smoktunovsky replaced the stuntman. And in the final, when Detochkin, who was released from prison, rushes to Lyuba, sitting behind the wheel of a trolley bus, Smoktunovsky was forced to turn to Ryazanov, who wanted to see exactly what he looked like when he said his: “Hello, Lyuba, I’m back!” The actor recalled that replacing Aroseva with Ryazanov prevented him: For a long time I did not succeed in this scene. Until I told Ryazanov, “Eldar, we will never finish if I look at your face all the time...”

It was in this picture that a brilliant tandem of Anatoly Papanov and Andrei Mironov developed. Mironov was able from the ordinary role of a crook Semitsvetov to create an image of a typical example of golden youth with his “Man knows how to live!”.

Papanov, to the taste of the film crew, played too funny, but brilliantly improvised. Therefore, Ryazanov, doubting, still left his lines in the final editing - and did not lose: Papal phrases like "You will be eaten, and you do not steal!" instantly went to the people. The film was released in 1966 and made a furor. For the year “Beware of the car” was watched by 29 million people, and Innokenty Smoktunovsky according to the survey of the magazine “Soviet screen” was recognized as the best actor of the year. The prize for the best actor went to the actor and at the festival in Spanish Cartagena. The film also received diplomas at international film festivals in Edinburgh and Sydney, and a year later in Melbourne. But all this is small compared to the long and sincere love of the people