Everyone knows that the writer Yulian Semenov was the creator of Stirlitz. But not everyone knows that several novels led to the image of a Soviet intelligence officer. First, in 1966, Semenov published the first one: "No password needed." It was in it that the Soviet intelligence agent Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov (pseudonym - Maxim Maksimovich Isaev) first became known to the reader. The novel was a success and in the same year was filmed by director Boris Grigoriev (by the way, a good friend of the writer) at the Gorky Film Studio under the same name.
Then, in 1967, Semyonov continued the theme and released the novel Major Whirlwind, which immediately became a bestseller, and again Vladimirov appeared among the heroes of this book. They again made a film based on the book, and all the boys of the USSR played Major Vortex. We only note that Vladimirov-Isaev was not the main character of either the novel or the film.
And then came 1970, and Semenov published Seventeen Moments of Spring, where Isaev (now Stirlitz) took revenge and became the main character. According to the plot, Semyonov threw him to Nazi Germany, where Vladimirov-Isaev rose to the rank of SS Standartenfuehrer and served under the command of Walter Shelenberg himself in foreign intelligence. In fact, there was nothing of the kind - Soviet intelligence officers did not come so close to the Nazi leaders.
2. The release of the new novel by Yulian Semenov was eagerly awaited not only by readers and filmmakers
The KGB of the USSR also made its own plans for Stirlitz. It was the Chekists who initiated the launch of a 13-episode film about the Soviet intelligence officer Isaev.
3. Initially, it was not Tatyana Lioznova who should have filmed "Seventeen Moments of Spring"
No one at first considered her for the position of the director of the "spy" film. After all, by that time, although she was one of the highest-grossing and famous directors of Soviet cinema, she shot melodramas: "Evdokia", "Three Poplars on Plyushchikha". However, Tatyana Lioznova began to fight for the right to shoot this film and won.
4. Legends say that, starting to shoot, Lioznova already knew all the performers and there was not even a screen test
However, in the funds of the State Film Agency, samples for the role of Isaev-Shtirlitsa were preserved. Innokenty Smoktunovsky or ... Archil Gomiashvili could play the cult scout. But the first was not satisfied with the forced move from Leningrad to Moscow (the film was filmed for two years), and the second was offered the role of Ostap Bender. Luckily for the viewer.
On the set of "Seventeen Moments of Spring"
5. No less beloved by the people, Mueller was not supposed to be played by Leonid Bronevoy - he auditioned for the role of Hitler
However, it turned out to be unconvincing. Vsevolod Sanaev, who was offered to play the Gruppenfuehrer, refused for ideological reasons: he was the party organizer of Mosfilm. Then Lioznova made castling of the actors and the role went to Bronevoy. It is interesting that the actor's father served in the KGB all his life.
The actors were not surprised at my choice, because they had rehearsed for a very long time before. With different partners ... All choice is the secret of my inner life. And endless immersion in the scenes of the future film. Replaying the whole picture in the mind with a different combination of actors
Tatiana Lioznova
6. Songs from the cult film also became popular hits and are not forgotten even now
The music for them was written by the composer Mikael Tariverdiev, who at first ... refused to work in the film. It turns out that shortly before the moment when he was invited to work by Tatyana Lioznova, the composer also wrote music for the "spy" film "Resident's Error", and he did not like the result - neither the film, nor his own music. Tariverdiev hastily refused the director of the no less famous "Dead Season" (which he later regretted), and was going to refuse Lioznova. However, I changed my mind after reading the script.
7. In the process of working on the music, Tariverdiev wrote ten songs, but only two of them were included in the film.
"Somewhere far away ..." and "Moments". Eight others had to be thrown out, since there was nowhere to insert them.
8. The performers of the songs in the film were also not immediately found
At first, Tatyana Lioznova planned to work with the then famous pop singer Vadim Mulerman, but his candidacy was "hacked to death" by the studio management. Then the director turned to Muslim Magomayev, and he even recorded both songs. However, Lyoznova did not like the performance. “No,” she said simply. It was then that Joseph Kobzon appeared and sang the songs the way the director wanted.
9. The first shooting of the picture took place in the GDR (East Germany)
There it was necessary to shoot all the scenes from Stirlitz in Berlin, as well as his murder of the Gestapo provocateur Klaus. And suddenly - the refusal of the authorities to release the actor Lev Durov - Klaus abroad. For what? It turned out that the ironic Durov laughed at the Soviet flag during the selection committee, which decided whether or not Durov was worthy of the honor to go abroad. The members of this commission asked Durov what the USSR flag looked like. Not wanting to look like an idiot, the actor immediately replied: “It looks very simple: a black background, on it a white skull and two crossed tibia. The flag is called "Jolly Roger". As a result, the murder of Klaus Stirlitz was filmed a little later, and not in the Podberlin, but in the forest near Moscow. And after this incident, Durov was firmly entrenched with a nickname, which he was very proud of - "the main bandit of the republic."
10. In the GDR, Stirlitz's Mercedes car (from the garage of the Gorky studio) stalled
The group was rescued by the sound engineer Leonard Bukhov, who found his friend from the front, Gunter Klibenstein, who collected old cars. It was from his collection that a car was rented for Stirlitz, in excellent condition.
11. One of the funniest curiosities of filming in the GDR was associated with Vyacheslav Tikhonov
The actor decided to walk from the set to the hotel in uniform and makeup. But the vigilant Berliners suspected that this strange man was a propagandist of fascism and decided to arrest him and hand him over to the police station. Tikhonov did not speak German, and for a little did not get into the police - Lioznova beat off from the crowd.
12. Filming took place in different parts of the USSR and abroad
Undestroyed Berlin was filmed in the capital of the GDR, more precisely in its eastern sector. Pastor Schlag crossed the Swiss border while filming in Georgia. And the appearance of the Soviet intelligence officer in Bern on Tsvetochnaya Street was "failed" in Riga, where she is still shown as one of the most interesting places in the capital of Latvia. The Zoological Museum (Museum of Nature), where Stirlitz was waiting for Bormann, was filmed in Leningrad. And the murder of the scoundrel Klaus (then restricted to travel abroad, actor Lev Durov) took place in a forest near Moscow.
13. Professor Pleischner was especially geographically incontinent.
After the installation, it turned out that a few hours before the failure, Evstigneev starts walking in Mines (correct: Meissen) in Germany, then looks at the cubs in the Tbilisi Zoo, reaches Blumenstrasse and is thrown out of the window in Riga.
Shot from the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring"
14. The director of the film was Yefim Lebedinsky, who for the role of extras - the same SS men who guarded the headquarters of the RSHA - invited his acquaintances, moreover, they were all Jews
A consultant from the KGB, who once came to the shooting and saw these extras, was suddenly indignant: they say, how is it - Jews are being removed in the role of SS men ?!
- What are you, an anti-Semite? - Lioznova was surprised.
- No, but you yourself know what our relationship is with Israel. So it turns out that in our film we will show that Jews were exterminated by the same Jews, only in the Gestapo uniform. Lioznova got the hint. She called Lebedinsky and ordered to change the extras.
15. As is often the case in movies, there were substitutions in Seventeen Moments.
The most famous of them is Stirlitz's hands. For example, in the frame where they showed Stirlitz's hands (when he draws the bosses of the Reich and lays out figurines of animals from matches), the hands of ... the film's artist Felix Rostotsky were shot. It turns out that Tikhonov had a tattoo on his right hand, made in his youth - "Glory". And no matter how hard the make-up artists tried to cover it up, in close-ups it still stood out. He, Rostotsky, wrote encrypted messages for Pleischner-Evstigneev. But there was another reason: the actor's handwriting was too bad to show it in close-up.
16. During the filming of the film, in June 1971, Ekaterina Gradova, who played the radio operator Katherine, had an affair with her future husband Andrei Mironov, with whom she worked in the same team - the Theater of Satire
17. During the same days, Gradova starred in one of the most dramatic episodes of the picture - in it the SS men tortured her infant child.
The role of the baby was played by not one actor, but several at once - about two dozen newborns from the nearest orphanage. They were constantly changing, since they could be removed for no more than two hours a day with intervals of at least fifteen minutes for swaddling and feeding.
But don't think that filmmakers actually tortured kids with cold and draft (as in the plot). In fact, the shooting took place in the studio and there was not even the slightest draft in it. Moreover, it was so hot from the spotlights that the children flatly refused to cry, but sweetly stretched and smiled at the camera. In the end, the sound engineer had to go to the hospital and record the crying on tape. This recording was then included in the film.
Barely having time to enter the country's television screens on August 11, 1973, the serial film "Seventeen Moments of Spring", directed by Tatyana Lioznova, produced the effect of a bomb. All Soviet viewers, forgetting about other matters, clung to their TV screens for twelve days, holding their breath, watching the heroic everyday life of the intelligence officer Maxim Isaev, better remembered as SS Standartenfuehrer Max Otto von Stirlitz, performed by the wonderful Soviet and Russian actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov.
History of creation
Stirlitz owes his appearance on the pages of books to the writer Yulian Semenov, who wrote a trilogy novel about Soviet intelligence officers during the Great Patriotic War. The first book, entitled "No Password Needed", was published back in 1966. It was followed over the next three years by "Major Whirlwind" and, in fact, the novel "Seventeen Moments of Spring", the film on which was soon shot on the personal initiative of the chairman of the State Security Committee Yuri Andropov.
In the same year, in which the novel itself was written, the management of the Lenfilm film studio bought the script of the same name from Yulian Semyonov, urgently approved it and appointed a director. Preparatory work for filming had already begun, tests of the first applicants for the role took place. Suddenly Tatyana Lioznova intervened in the situation, until that moment had managed to establish herself as a brilliant director's work in the just-released film "Three Poplars on Plyushchikha".
After a long time, she still managed to convince Semenov to withdraw the script from Lenfilm and sell it in which she worked.
Location question
Since the future television film was dedicated to the feat of Soviet intelligence officers risking their lives in the very lair of Nazi Germany - the city of Berlin, in addition to the selection of actors that would reflect as much as possible the vision of this story by the director Lioznova herself, who managed to almost completely correct and supplement the entire author's script by the beginning of filming, it was necessary to solve another , no less important question. It consisted in the fact that somehow it was necessary to convey the atmosphere of Berlin, Swiss Bern and other places of front-line Europe, but at the same time manage not to go beyond the allocated budget.
I had to use all my ingenuity and imagination. She came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bsolving this issue through geographical imitations, presenting on the screen some cities and states as completely different.
As a result, there were many places where the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" was filmed. They were both abroad and within the country, and sometimes one single scene, visible to the viewer at the TV screen as a whole, was in fact a whole patchwork quilt. As an example, we can cite the scene of Professor Pleischner's failure, in which he first begins his journey in German Meissen, admires the cubs already in the Tbilisi zoo, and ends his life on the pavement of the Latvian capital Riga.
The Swiss border, which Pastor Schlag crossed, was in Georgia. The Berlin Zoological Museum, in which Stirlitz was expecting Bormann, was filmed in Leningrad. Filming "Seventeen Moments of Spring" in Butyrka prison easily depicted the horrors of the torture chambers of the fascist Gestapo (pictured below).
Let us dwell in more detail on the filming locations of this legendary film, which for forty-five years has not lost either its relevance or the love of viewers.
GDR
After the end of all the organizational hardships, in the spring of 1971, work on the film finally began.
The film crew, along with all the props and actors, went to the friendly German Democratic Republic, the first of the locations where "17 Moments of Spring" was filmed. There it was planned to shoot the murder of a fascist provocateur by Stirlitz, performed by actor Lev Durov, as well as all full-scale scenes of front-line Berlin.
However, the visiting commission did not release Durov from his fatherland. The reason for this was the artist's apolitical character. When asked about what the flag of the Soviet Union looks like, Lev Durov replied:
It looks very simple: a black background with a white skull and two crossed tibia. The flag is called "Jolly Roger" ...
His name was immediately struck off the list of departures.
So, exactly what sights of the GDR became the very places where "17 Moments of Spring" was filmed?
There were quite a few of them. First, in Germany, views of the Swiss Bern were filmed, the city to which Professor Pleischner arrived, whose role was played by the brilliant actor Yevgeny Evstigneev. Having appeared in Bern, the professor walks along its streets and gets acquainted with the city. TV viewers see old houses unusual for the Soviet eye, tiled roofs, cobblestone pavements and the city cathedral with two symmetrical bell towers.
In fact, these shots were made on the Schlossbrücke street in the East German city of Meissen.
The second object for filming was the Stirlitz house, according to the script located in Babelsberg, an area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Potsdam.
In fact, this house is located in the Pankow district, northern part of Berlin. It was here that the Soviet intelligence officer lived.
Another place where "17 Moments of Spring" was filmed, in particular, the hospital in which the screen child of radio operator Kat was born, was the real Berlin university clinic "Charite".
This hospital was founded in 1710 and is the oldest medical institution not only in Germany, but also in Europe.
"Elephant"
This establishment, Stirlitz's favorite beer restaurant, is known to any patriot of the TV movie.
In real life "Elephant" is called Zur Letzten Instanz, which translates as "Last resort". The restaurant is not only one of the attractions of Berlin, but also the oldest institution in the world, since the first mention of the building in which it is located dates back to 1561. The very same "Instance" dates back to 1621.
Over the years, such celebrities and historical figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, Clara Zetkin, Wilhelm Raabe, Charlie Chaplin have become visitors to this restaurant. And in the new history, the guests of "Instance" were Mikhail Gorbachev, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.
We are interested in this institution primarily as another place where "17 Moments of Spring" was filmed. It was here, in a pub, named after the film "Elephant", that Stirlitz once had a silent five-minute meeting with his wife, arranged by the Soviet foreign intelligence services.
In the same restaurant, Maxim Isaev had dinner with Pastor Schlag, played by the famous actor Rostislav Plyatt. However, this time the institution already bore a different name - Zum groben Gottlieb, which translates from German as “At the rude Gottlieb”.
The very famous and touching meeting of Stirlitz with his wife, whose image was embodied by the actress Eleanor Shashkova, was filmed not in this restaurant, but in Moscow, in the pavilion of the film studio.
Gorky Film Studio
After a month of work in the GDR, the film crew returned to Moscow, almost immediately starting work in the pavilions of the Gorky film studio specially created for the film.
By their arrival, the decorators managed to do a serious amount of work, recreating in their decorations the setting of Stirlitz's safe house, corridors of the Reich Chancellor of Germany and the office of the head of the secret state police Heinrich Müller, whose image became practically the first iconic work in the cinema of actor Leonid Bronevoy. Out of habit, the tunic sewn by dressers rubbed Leonid Sergeyevich's neck, so he constantly nervously twitched his chin to the side. This movement was noticed by the director Lioznova and subsequently left in the film.
The work in the pavilions continued almost all summer, after which the film crew went to the Latvian SSR.
Latvia
Shooting in Riga "Seventeen Moments of Spring" became one of the most important in the film. In the capital of Latvia, many episodes were filmed, giving viewers the atmosphere of both Berlin and Bern.
One of the sights of the city used in the film is the Riga House with black cats, which can be seen in the photo below.
This building in the central part of the Old Town of Riga, built in 1909, for the purpose of the film became for a time a Berlin hotel, where the Soviet intelligence officer Isaev met with Hitler's personal secretary Martin Borman, whose role, after some hesitation, was played by the Soviet songwriter and poet Yuri Vizbor.
The next object for filming was the Lutheran Church of the Cross, which is an architectural monument of the city of Riga.
This building for the needs of the film became the church of Pastor Schlag, and its outer shell. At the same time, the pastor was engaged in repairing the organ and conducting services in the premises of the St. Paul's Church in Riga, the interior of which was also used in the painting.
The turnout of the Soviet intelligence officer in Bern failed in the building of a tenement house, built in 1903 by the architect Wilhelm Ludwig Nikolaus Bokslavs.
In the right window in the photo below there should have been a flower as a conditional signal warning of the failure of Stirlitz's safe house.
Professor Pleischner, by mistake, ignored this.
In order not to fall into the hands of the thugs of Gruppenführer Müller, he took his own life by jumping out of the entrance window onto the paving stones at about the place shown in the photo below.
The episode of the death of Professor Pleischner became one of the most dramatic in the film.
Flower street
This place, whose real name sounds like Jauniela Street, has become the most famous Soviet cinematic street in Old Riga over the years.
In "Seventeen Moments of Spring" it was called Blumenstrasse. In another famous film, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson," Jauniel Street became the very Baker Street.
In fact, the Flower Street in Bern, according to the script, which became the last refuge for the unfortunate Professor Pleischner, never existed and never does.
Georgia
In January 1972, filming of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" began in Georgia. The purpose of the trip of the film crew was Tbilisi, in the zoo of which an episode of Professor Pleischner's visit to the alleged Bernese menagerie was filmed.
In the Borjomi mountains, Pastor Shlag's crossing was filmed, and the place where the pastor began to ski was the Bakuriani ski resort.
The main greeting from sunny Georgia in the film was the same silent scene of Stirlitz's meeting with his wife in the Elephant cafe, the idea of \u200b\u200bwhich was submitted to Tatiana Lioznova by one of the main consultants of Seventeen Moments of Spring, Georgian KGB colonel Georgy Pipia, who took this story from his personal experience.
Moscow
By March, the film crew returned to Moscow. There were also a lot of places where this film was filmed.
In the very first shots of the picture, you can see Stirlitz walking in the suburbs of Berlin with Frau Saurich along the bank of a beautiful pond. In fact, this place was the former manor house of Arkhangelskoye-Tyurikovo, located in the North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow.
The building of the US special services in Bern was the city of the eighteenth century on Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow.
The house with a safe house, in which the Nazis mocked the child of radio operator Kat, was the Solovyov mansion at the intersection of Khlebny and Maly Rzhevsky lanes.
The Rizhsky railway station of the city of Moscow, which is an architectural monument, was involved in the film twice.
For the first time, the Rizhsky railway station was used as an image of the border station, from which Professor Pleischner departs for the Swiss Bern. In the last episode of the film, he has already "played the role" of the railway station of the city of Bern, from which Stirlitz escorted radio operator Kat to Paris.
The Lira cafe, once popular among young people, was chosen for the Alpine Skiers Hotel, in which Stirlitz was molested by a drunken lady, on the site of which the first McDonald's restaurant in the Soviet Union was later built (pictured below).
Instead of an afterword
From 11 to 24 August 1973, the premiere of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" took place, capturing the attention of viewers for twelve days and even sharply reducing the level of crime, according to official police reports.
The same reaction of viewers was observed in Hungary, Bulgaria, Cuba, and everywhere, where this wonderful film was ever broadcast.
There is a legend according to which, after viewing this picture, a sentimental Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev ordered to immediately find and reward the real Stirlitz.
However, the fictional character Maxim Isaev was just a beautiful film legend about the feat of Soviet intelligence officers and the terrible war that the country experienced in those distant times, which must never be forgotten ...
the site decided to reveal the details of the shooting of the famous film.
In 1969, the novel by Yulian Semyonov had not even been released as a separate book, but the script "Seventeen Moments of Spring" has already been approved and the director has been selected.
Director Tatyana Lioznova fought so hard for the right to shoot the film that Semyonov had to withdraw the script from Lenfilm.
She selected the actors for her picture with incredible precision - the image had to match 100%. Lioznova, disagreeing with anyone.
The main rival of Ekaterina Gradova, who played the Russian radio operator Kat, was Irina Alferova.
The Leningrad singer Maria Pakhomenko and Svetlana Svetlichnaya, who were later approved for the role of Gabi, in love with the main character, auditioned for the role of Stirlitz's wife. Well, the wife of a Soviet intelligence officer was destined to become the actress of the Vakhtangov Theater, Eleonora Shashkova, who was brought to the site the day before filming.
Faina Ranevskaya could have appeared in the film, but Semenov did not respond to Lioznova's request and refused the scene with the participation of the old German woman. The director immediately decided that during the filming she would do everything in her own way. When Lioznova and Semenov came to Ranevskaya's home and showed her the script, Faina Georgievna, having read it, was horrified. “What is this idiocy? - she exclaimed. - How can you play it? And she flatly refused.
The great Faina Ranevskaya could have appeared in the film
There were several candidates for the role of Hitler, for which two Leonids auditioned: Bronevoy and Kuravlev. However, their photo tests did not satisfy the director, and they were approved for other roles: Bronevoy played Müller, Kuravlev played Aisman. And Hitler was the German actor Fritz Diez, who, ever since the epic "Liberation", was forever registered in this role.
Filming of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" took place both abroad and in different parts of the USSR.
The scene where Pastor Schlag crosses the Swiss border was actually filmed in Georgia. The Gestapo dungeons were found in the Butyrka prison. The Zoological Museum, where Stirlitz was waiting for Bormann, was filmed in Leningrad. A few hours before the failure, Professor Pleischner begins to walk in Meissen in Germany, then looks at the cubs in the Tbilisi Zoo, reaches Blumenstrasse and is thrown out of the window in Riga. In addition to nature filming, the film also used a large amount of military documentary chronicles.Filming took place both abroad and in different parts of the USSR
Musical compositions "Song of the distant homeland" and "Moments" on the verses of Robert Rozhdestvensky became an indisputable decoration of the picture. However, finding the right artist for them proved to be difficult.
Invited to record the songs were: Muslim Magomayev, Valery Obodzinsky, Vadim Mulerman, Valentina Tolkunova. As a result, they agreed on Joseph Kobzon. However, the director demanded that he sang as if "there is no Kobzon in the film." The singer was upset, but still did what was asked of him. But his name did not get into the credits, since they were made before the artist was approved.
Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Oleg Strizhenov and Archil Gomiashvili auditioned for the role of Stirlitz. The candidacy of the latter, who became famous as Ostap Bender in "12 chairs", was defended by the author of the novel Yulian Semenov. Strizhenov was busy, but Smoktunovsky was not satisfied that the filming could take two years. Vsevolod Sanaev was considered for the role of Muller. But he refused: "I will not play a fascist!" They searched for Hitler for a long time. Auditioned by Leonid Kuravlev. Unconvincing. They took a German, and he was given the role of the one-eyed SS man Eisman. As Kuravlev told us, he was not averse to playing the Fuhrer: “But failure! Well, even great artists fail. Lioznova always had her own opinion. " The main rival of Ekaterina Gradova, who played the radio operator Kat, was Irina Alferova, but she was abroad at that time.
Smoktunovsky, Strizhenov and Gomiashvili auditioned for the role of Stirlitz
"17 Moments" is considered the most expensive Soviet TV series “17 Moments” is considered the most expensive Soviet TV series, although the film's real budget is a mystery covered in darkness. Moreover: so much money was spent on the shooting that Lioznova did not have enough money to complete the film. Still, the shooting lasted two years in different cities and countries.
One of the most romantic episodes of the film is the meeting of Colonel Isaev with his wife in the Elefant cafe in Germany. Although there was no scene of a date in a cafe in Semyonov's novel. Tikhonov suggested inserting it after talking with one of the scouts. It turns out that many of our residents arranged such contactless meetings with their relatives.
Legendary 12-episode feature television film directed by Tatiana Lioznovawas filmed based on the novel of the same name writer Julian Semyonov... When the film was on, the streets were empty - people took seats in front of the TV in advance, they waited for each episode, then discussed in the kitchens.
The war drama takes place shortly before Germany surrendered in World War II - from February 12 to March 24, 1945. The main character is Soviet scout Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, he is also Standartenführer Max Otto von Stirlitz - receives an important task. He needs to find out which of the leaders of the Reich is negotiating an armistice between Germany and the United States and Great Britain.
Director Tatiana Lioznova devoted several years of her life to the film. And the people appreciated it: after "17 Moments of Spring" director Tatyana Lioznova received 12 bags of letters from the audience and she read everything ...
“She is a great craftswoman, fanatically devoted to her profession of director. - Told "AiF" Leonid Kuravlev, who played SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Kurt Eismann. - Lioznova taught a lot to all those who came into contact with her. Tatyana Mikhailovna loved very tough discipline. You can feel it on the screen, by the way. After all, the painting “17 Moments of Spring” is a male painting, it is not female. When Lioznova entered the pavilion, there was silence - silence, not to say that it was dead, but creative silence. The hostess came to do creative work and everyone knew that she would demand full commitment from everyone, from the first member of the film group to the last member of the film group. Discipline is one of the important tools that brought success to the picture. "
Lioznova's work was incredible already at the preparatory stage. The choice of an actor for the main role was especially difficult. "Stirlitz" could become Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Oleg Strizhenov, Yuri Solomin... But the main contender was Archil Gomiashvili, with whom, according to rumors, Tatyana Lioznova then had an affair. As Lioznova later said in an interview, she wanted to see something antipathetic in the face of Stirlitz. But all applicants were employed in other film projects, and Tikhonov was free. Now it is even difficult to imagine someone else in the role of Stirlitz.
Interesting that initially Leonid Broneviy offered the role of ... Hitler! (By the way, the same Kuravlev also auditioned for the Fuhrer.)
When Leonid Bronevoy walks down the street, he is always followed by: "Look, look, Mueller." As Leonid Sergeevich says, he is sometimes even offended: he has played a huge number of roles in cinema (more than 120) and in the theater, and for the people he is always Mueller from "Seventeen Moments of Spring". Although, the actor argues, on the other hand, it's great that he has a role - a "visiting" card.
When Bronevoy came to photo tests for the role of Hitler, it turned out that in makeup he really looks incredibly like the Fuhrer. But the artist's wife was categorically against her husband playing the leader of the Third Reich and said that she only agreed that he played the SS Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller. Of course, as the artist himself says, not only the "protest" of his wife influenced his rejection of the role of Adolf Hitler. In fact, according to the script, the personality of the Fuhrer is not written out as subtly as Mueller.
In 17 Moments of Spring, the Nazi leader is an eternally screaming character, almost a caricature. But the role of Müller became an interesting acting challenge. Armor plunged headlong into work. And six months before the start of filming "Seventeen Moments of Spring" Leonid Sergeevich learned not only the role of Muller, but also the role of Stirlitz.
Bronevoy's wife helped in this. Victoria Valentinovna read Tikhonov's monologue, and Bronevoy read her own. They learned words at night, because in the afternoon Bronevoy's wife was at work. Therefore, as Leonid Sergeevich later said, his wife was very exhausted during the preparation for the film. But, as Leonid Bronevoy said in an interview with AiF, he needed to thoroughly know Stirlitz's monologues in order to “respond accurately, choose the correct intonation, gesture”. By the way, even ... a tight uniform helped Bronevoy to solve the acting problem. It was because of the inconvenience of the suit that Mueller's famous nervous tic appeared. The armor was sewn into a uniform two sizes smaller than needed, and the actor's neck was constantly cut.
“So I was constantly twitching and moving my head,” says Bronevoy. - As a result, the director Tatiana Lioznova could not resist: "What's wrong with you?" - "The uniform rubs me." - "I am not talking about that. Why don't we paint it in places where Mueller is nervous? And Lioznova found these moments in the picture.
By the way, the real Heinrich Müller was a tall, thin brunette with a crooked nose. As Bronevoy said, if he found out about this before filming, he would refuse the role.
And here Oleg Tabakovon the contrary, it turned out to be incredibly similar to SS Brigadefuehrer Walter Schellenberg. After the release of the film, Schellenberg's niece wrote from Germany to Oleg Pavlovich, she said that the whole family enjoyed watching the film every time. relatives are pleased to see "Uncle Walter" again.
The audience fell in love with the legendary series “17 Moments of Spring” so much that the characters in the picture began to live their own lives: the people composed a huge number of anecdotes about the sweet couple “Stirlitz-Muller”.
« — Wait, who is coming ?!
- Rain,— said Stirlitz and drummed his fingers on the glass. "
“Stirlitz once decided to prank Muller on April 1. “Mueller, do you know that I am a Russian intelligence officer?” - “I don’t know!”, - in turn, played Mueller Stirlitz. ”
According to Leonid Bronevoy, his most favorite jokes are also about Stirlitz and Müller. Some can even be considered a confession of people's love for actors, says Leonid Sergeevich. For example, “Stirlitz shot Müller. The bullet bounced off. "Armor" - thought Stirlitz. "
We've done some work finding locations for this hit show. Last year, in my LiveJournal I had a series "Places of Military Glory of Standartenführer von Stirlitz in Riga," unfinished for various reasons, but now we decided to slightly expand the format of the storytelling and redo the old posts. ipaat provides footage from the film, I track filming locations these days, and talk about them. Everyone who is interested in this topic is asked to check in here in the comments. You also really need someone who is well acquainted with the views of real Berlin to help identify several species - is there one among you?
In this part I will give several quotes and links to resources about the filming in general - where they took place, and real prototypes of the heroes, in the next we plan to dwell in detail on each place separately.
Filming in the GDR: Durov was not released, and Tikhonov was barely arrested
Lev Durov as Klaus
Filming began in March 1971 with an expedition to the GDR. There they had to shoot all the scenes of Stirlitz in Berlin, as well as his murder of the Gestapo provocateur Klaus. However, the last episode will not be able to be filmed on German soil, since our authorities categorically refused to release actor Lev Durov into a friendly state for the USSR. Reason: bad behavior of the actor on the visiting committee. What it is? In accordance with the situation that existed at that time, every citizen of the USSR traveling abroad had to first go through the filter of the visiting commission. It usually consisted of the most zealous servants of the party, who in every departing saw, at worst, a potential traitor to the motherland, at best a fool. So they met Durov accordingly. For example, they immediately asked: "Describe to us what the flag of the Soviet Union looks like." Hearing such a question, the actor answered it according to the setting: “It looks very simple: a black background, on it a white skull and two crossed tibia. The flag is called "Jolly Roger". What started here! The women screamed, the men waved their hands: how dare you! but shame on you!
However, the poll continued, but this could no longer lead to anything good. A certain lady asked: "Name the capitals of the Union republics." Durov, without batting an eye, listed: "Kalinin, Tambov, Magnitogorsk, Tula, Malakhovka." They did not ask him about anything else, and they deleted him from the lists of those leaving. Of course, Durov let the whole film crew down, but he simply could not act otherwise - he did not want to look like an even bigger idiot in the eyes of idiots. Fortunately, Lioznova will find a way out of this situation: the murder of Klaus by Stirlitz will be filmed a little later in a forest near Moscow. And after this incident, Durov was firmly entrenched with a nickname, which he was very proud of - "the main bandit of the republic."
Mercedes Stirlitz
In the GDR, filmmakers took almost all of their props, which included Stirlitz's Mercedes car (from the garage of the Gorky studio). However, the German craftsmen, who examined this "Merc" during the war, said that he could hardly work: the state, they say, is disgusting. Ours only laughed at this statement. But on the very first day of shooting, the Mercedes actually stalled. The group was rescued by the sound engineer Leonard Bukhov, who found his still front-line friend Gunter Klibenstein, who collected old cars. From his collection, a car was rented for Stirlitz in very excellent condition.
There were other curious cases on German soil. For example, once Vyacheslav Tikhonov was almost arrested. He decided to march from the hotel to the set (fortunately it was not far away) in the uniform of an SS Standartenfuehrer, for which he was immediately detained by Berliners. They considered him an adherent of fascism and were already going to be escorted to the police station. Fortunately, members of the film crew heard this noise, rushed to the scene of the scandal and recaptured the artist from the Berliners.
F. Razzakov. Chapters from the book "Our Favorite Cinema. Intrigues Behind the Scenes" Algorithm 2004
http://www.levdurov.ru/show_arhive.php?id\u003d1004
Quotes about shooting locations (quotes from different sources are separated by pictures):
You know for sure, reader, that the most popular Soviet television film "17 Moments of Spring" based on the story of Yulian Semenov was filmed in Riga, too. Its action according to the script begins somewhere in the same days of March, but exactly 60 years ago, and in a completely different country - not in Latvia, but in Nazi Germany.
The Third Reich is already in full swing with the ruins of cities and factories, but fascism still resists. Hitler is still raging at his headquarters. And on the outskirts of Berlin, everything is pretty calm, only the spring wind sways over the neat cottage village, still bare tree branches. Standartenfuehrer Stirlitz quietly lives there in his mansion, he is also Mr. Bolsen, he is a Soviet intelligence officer, Colonel Isaev.
A lot has been said, written and shown about the series directed by T. Lioznova. There are large publications of the press, there is a whole cycle of television programs of L. Parfenov. About the script, actors, filming ... Let's go from the other end - let's start, as they say, from the local texture. There is enough of it in Riga. Offhand - the church of Pastor Schlag, Berne's Blumenstrasse with a failed turnout, the Berlin Museum of Nature, from where Stirlitz watched Bormann's car, and the very place of work of the Colonel Standartenfuehrer - the Reich Imperial Security Office - RSHA - is available. All these are completely real Riga landscapes. Let's walk with you through our lovely city - cinematic Berlin.
http://rus.delfi.lv/news/press/mklat/article.php?id\u003d10775133
Filming took place in different parts of the USSR and abroad. Undestroyed Berlin was filmed in the capital of the GDR, more precisely in its eastern sector. Pastor Schlag crossed the Swiss border while filming in Georgia. And the appearance of the Soviet intelligence officer in Bern on Tsvetochnaya Street was "failed" in Riga, where she is still shown as one of the most interesting places in the capital of Latvia. The Zoological Museum, where Stirlitz was waiting for Bormann, was filmed in Leningrad. And the murder of the scoundrel Klaus (then restricted to travel abroad, actor Lev Durov) took place in a forest near Moscow.
http://dimakozlov.ru/17.htm
Note: not a zoological museum, but a nature museum. Apparently, interiors were filmed in Leningrad. And the exterior of the building is in Riga.
And Professor Pleischner. A few hours before the failure, Evstigneev begins to walk in Mines (correctly: Meissen) in Germany, then looks at the cubs in the Tbilisi Zoo, reaches Blumenstrasse and is thrown out of a window in Riga. And all this is not hidden from the viewer. After all, the main thing is not the unity of the place.
http://www.mirdvd.by/catalog/dvd/1145.html
Why do filmmakers go to Berlin to shoot a film about London?
Filmmakers have to pass off certain cities and countries as others for different reasons. It turns out a deception for the benefit of the viewer. Without geographical falsification, making a spectacular film can be an overwhelming task.
Often directors cannot find places for filming a film (as they say in filmmaking - nature) where it is provided for by the film script. A bleak landscape or changes in architecture force the director to film the views elsewhere.
Western Europe in the Baltics
Soviet filmmakers successfully shot films about Western Europe on Jauniela Street in Riga. On its even side, Igor Maslennikov filmed Baker Street. Tatiana Lioznova passed off the odd side for Bern's Flower Street in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".
http://www.dopinfo.ru/y/film/
Almost all summer, the group worked at an accelerated pace in the pavilions, after which in early autumn they went to Riga to film Flower Street and other episodes.
After Riga filming returned to the pavilion, where they filmed episodes from episodes 1-6. The first three episodes of the film were delivered at the studio in late autumn. And at the beginning of the next year we set off again - this time to Tbilisi, in order to film the episode of Pastor Schlag's passage through the Alps in the mountains near the town of Borjomi.
http://www.levdurov.ru/show_arhive.php?id\u003d1008
Was Stirlitz's prototype Latvian?
I’ll add that I don’t know if Stirlitz was Latvian, but Erwin, the husband of radio operator Kat, should have been. Yulian Semyonov has his name in the world in the book - Ervin Bertsis! Both the name and surname sound quite Latvian.
"17 Moments of Spring" - just the imprint of the film (director, actors): http://7682.ru/cinema_home/170.html
Cool flash cartoons, a parody of the TV series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" based on folk jokes (they go without a sound for me, but it should be there)
Stirlitz .. html