Another ending and the refusal to shoot naked: what remained behind the scenes of the filming of "White Sun of the Desert"

This film has long been a classic of Soviet cinema, although its shooting was accompanied by great difficulties, the director was accused of incompetence, and the audience could not see their favorite characters on the screens at all. Few people know that "The White Sun of the Desert" originally had not only a different name, but also a different ending, and the cut episodes would have been enough for two series.

In the 1960s, in the wake of the popularity of the "Elusive Avengers", interest in adventure cinema increased, and at the management level it was decided to shoot "easterns" with historical and revolutionary content as opposed to foreign "westerns".

Andrey Konchalovsky and Friedrich Gorenstein were involved in working on the script of a new film with the working title "Basmachi" (or "The Desert"). The plot is based on a story told by a participant in the Civil War, about how in Central Asia the Basmachi, fleeing from the Red Army, abandoned their harems in the desert. So one more name of the film was born — "Save the Harem".

Konchalovsky soon left the project for the filming of another film. Yuri Chulyukin and Andrey Tarkovsky also refused to work. Vladimir Motyl planned to shoot a picture about the Decembrists, but, having received guarantees of complete freedom of action on the set, he agreed to take up work on the proposed project about the "Basmachs". The name "Save the Harem" seemed ambiguous to the Soviet cinematographic leadership, so another version was approved — "The White Sun of the Desert".

Georgy Yumatov was invited to play the role of the Red Army soldier Sukhov, but at that time he already had serious problems with alcohol, and the director's fears that he could disrupt the shooting were not unfounded. A week after the start of filming, he got into a drunken fight and came to the set covered in bruises. Then the director decided to shoot an actor whose candidacy was rejected at the auditions — Anatoly Kuznetsov. 

Non-professional actors were also involved in the filming. Only three of Abdullah's nine wives are actresses, the rest were far from the world of cinema. The women could not stand the heat, and in those scenes where they did not need to open their faces, they were duplicated by young soldiers dressed in a burqa.

Filming took place in Dagestan and Turkmenistan. Discipline in the creative group was lame — the actors often disappeared in local restaurants and participated in drunken brawls. The episode where Vereshchagin's face bleeds during a fight on a longboat is completely natural. The day before, in a fight with local hooligans, Luspekayev had his eyebrow cut.

During the business trip, they did not have time to shoot all the planned material. As a result, the commission rejected the director's work and accused him of professional unfitness, and the film was put "on the shelf" for 4 months. But since the Ministry of Finance refused to write off the money spent on the shooting, it was decided to still give Motyl the opportunity to complete work on the film.

In order for the film to be released, the director had to reshoot several scenes, and cut out some finished episodes. So, initially, the ending was completely different: Vereshchagin's wife goes crazy with grief, and Abdullah's wives in despair rush to their dead husband and sob over the body. Sukhov expected to see the joy of salvation on their faces, but they ran past him and began to wail over their husband, as Eastern women should. But such a finale outraged the management of Mosfilm.

Many shots were not included in the picture. So, an episode was cut out when Abdullah set fire to the tank where his wives were hiding. Women, fleeing from the fire, had to take off their clothes and get out. But all of them flatly refused to be filmed naked. After much persuasion, they agreed, setting a condition: there should be no men on the set. But there was no way to get rid of the operators and illuminators, so only the carpenter had to be driven away. By hook or by crook, the episode was removed, but the commission demanded that it be removed. I also had to" cut out the thighs " of Katerina Matveyevna when she crossed the stream with her skirt up, as this was regarded as pornography. They also removed those scenes in which Vereshchagin was drunk — the hero could not be an alcoholic.

Many scenes with Abdullah's wives were cut out of the film. Art critic and translator Svetlana Slivinskaya, who played the role of Saida, says: "At first, an adventure picture was planned called "Save the Harem", where Abdullah and his wives were the main ones. But the material was cut, the picture was renamed, the main thing was not a harem, but a story about how the revolution took place in Asian countries. I remember that they rejected the scene, as in one of the dreams Sukhov throws me from a longboat to the song "From behind the island to the Strezhen". I had to submissively go under the water. It's good that the divers pulled me out in time! And then the scene was ordered to be cut out as cruel."

But even after these changes, the material did not satisfy the commission, and Motyl had to make about 30 more edits. The final version was significantly different from the original, but the director of Mosfilm was not satisfied with the result and did not sign the acceptance certificate. The audience would probably never have seen one of the best Soviet films if they had not shown Leonid Brezhnev "The White Sun of the Desert" at a closed viewing once. He was so delighted with what he saw that the picture was released for rent. In the first year, the film was watched by 35 million viewers, and it still does not lose its popularity.