Ugly stories that hide famous Soviet films

When we watch our favorite Soviet comedies, heroic dramas, or tender films about love, it is hard to imagine that behind these pictures lie someone's tragedies, grievances, or even simple domestic conflicts. What does the famous Soviet cinema hide?

"The Test of Loyalty", 1954

The star of the musical comedies "Pig and Shepherd "and" Kuban Cossacks " Marina Ladynina stopped acting in the mid-50s. The last work of the actress in the cinema was the melodrama "Test of Loyalty", directed by her husband Ivan Pyriev. Ironically, on the set of the film about love and devotion between the spouses there was a rift, and immediately after the release of the film, the director and the actress divorced. In retaliation, the influential Pyryev forbade his colleagues to invite Ladynina to the shooting. 

According to rumors, the director's anger also touched the famous Klara Rumyanova. Initially, Pyriev invited her to the main role in the "Test", but Rumyanova considered the picture cloying, and the courtship of a married director, who was also older than the VGIK graduate by almost 30 years, did not accept. After that, Rumyanova did not act in films for 6 years, which was also associated with Pyriev's revenge.

"D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers", 1978

The role of Milady was invited by the actress Elena Solovey, but she refused because of pregnancy — she was expecting her second child, a son. Margarita Terekhova, who was invited to replace Solovey, also found herself in a position, but ... for the sake of participating in the film, she terminated her pregnancy. Because of this, the actress refused to shoot on horseback and sat on a horse only in close-ups.

"The Diamond Hand", 1969

The" foreign " language of the smugglers who hide the diamonds in Nikulin's cast was invented right on the set of the film. In particular, the expletive "mordyuk" was invented by the director Leonid Gaidai himself after a quarrel with the actress Nona Mordyukova.

"12 chairs", 1971

The famous Kisa Vorobyaninov, actor Sergei Filippov, for several years struggled with a terrible disease — brain cancer. Headaches began to bother the actor before the shooting of the comedy "12 chairs", it was decided to replace him with Rostislav Plyatta, but Filippov insisted on his participation in the shooting. He died in 1990. The body of the actor lay in an empty apartment for two weeks.

"Andrey Rublev", 1966

The famous work of Andrei Tarkovsky became a classic of world cinema, but during the filming of "Rublev", the director came under an avalanche of criticism: colleagues and journalists accused Tarkovsky of cruelty to animals. Allegedly, a cow was burned on the platform in the frame, a horse was slaughtered, and another horse broke its legs in the scene of falling from the wall.

In his defense, the director claimed that the horse was doomed anyway — it was taken for filming from the slaughterhouse. And the cow, according to Tarkovsky, was covered with a fireproof cloth and was not injured, but the staff of the film crew claimed otherwise.

The story of the murder of animals for the sake of art caused a huge scandal in the cinema. For example, for director Kira Muratova, Tarkovsky then ceased to exist.

"The Caucasian Captive", 1967

The premiere of the famous Soviet comedy was overshadowed by a quarrel between Leonid Gaidai and actor Yevgeny Morgunov. A seasoned member of the famous trinity "caught a star" and made a scandal at a closed technical preview of "Captive". He appeared at the show drunk in the company of drunk girls, and then poured jokes and insults at Gaidai from the last row. The actor was taken out, and the director rewrote the tape, cutting out all the scenes with Morgunov that were possible. After that, Gaidai did not work with Morgunov and did not communicate with him until the end of his life.

"Sannikov Land", 1973

This movie is also associated with the conflict between the director and the actors, only in this case, the directors fell under the disgrace of the artists — there were two of them. To create the film, it was decided to attract debutants — Albert Mkrtchyan, who had only one full-length film under his belt, and Leonid Popov. The main actors rebelled against the newcomers: Sergey Shakurov, Oleg Dal, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky and Georgy Vitsin. The conspirators demanded that Mosfilm remove non-professionals from the filming. 

The negotiations lasted a month and led to the fact that the instigator of the protest Shakurov was removed from the role of the fugitive convict Gubin (he still managed to star in a couple of episodes). He was replaced by Yuri Nazarov. Shakurov called Dal and Dvorzhetsky, who remained in the team, traitors and stopped communicating with them.

"White Desert Sun", 1970

The role of the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov made the actor Anatoly Kuznetsov famous, but he got into the picture because of the tragedy of another artist-Georgy Yumatov, who was originally approved for the main role. Yumatov was excluded from the film for drunkenness. 

Just a week after the start of filming, the actor went on a binge, he was severely beaten, he could not work. A year later, the film "Officers" was released, which still became Yumatov's finest hour, but the actor did not overcome the craving for alcohol. In 1994, drunk, he shot a janitor with a shotgun. The following year, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, Yumatov was granted amnesty as a front-line soldier, but immediately after prison, the actor was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Georgy Yumatov died in 1997 from a ruptured abdominal aorta.