A musical comedy. The famous work of the famous director Grigory Alexandrov and the actress Lyubov Orlova, beloved by millions at that time, as well as Comrade Stalin's favorite film, which he often reviewed. And how could you pass by such a thing? So the author of this review could not do this, and looked at the picture with great pleasure. And the final result rather pleased him. And here is a brief opinion - A good Soviet musical comedy of the late thirties. There were almost only advantages in it (with the exception of editing, but the author of this review will tell you about this in a separate paragraph), but for now you should finish the introduction and move on to the interesting.
So, here are the pros:
1. The scenario - the picture tells the story of two amateur musical groups that go to Moscow to participate in the Olympics, and the leaders of these groups: Avdotya Petrova, nicknamed "Strelka" and Alexey Trubyshkin are lovers, which gives everything that is happening a whisper of piquancy. At the same time, the local bureaucrat Byvalov takes part in all this activity, who wants to "push himself" at the expense of talented people. The old pilot fits well into this company. There are many different situations waiting for them on the way, and in the final there will be a grand triumph. In addition, the creators even destroy the "fourth wall", which looks pretty good. In addition to the fact that the script here is easy, it also charges every viewer who looks at the picture with a great mood. It's worth a lot.
2. Humor - there are frankly funny moments, and a lot of funny situations, and outright antics of some actors (in most cases it works correctly). Of course, wild laughter is not worth hoping for, although there is one point that strongly leads to this. The humor here is more mundane, and that's what catches on.
3. Songs and music - this picture can now be called a musical with full rights, since they sing and dance quite often here - and it turned out just great. The precision of the movements, and this despite the fact that some of the artists were already far from young. And the songs are pleasing to the eye and ear. Although there is not a single one that sticks in the memory (except classical music, which everyone knows). Although their text was written by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.
4. The life of the USSR in the thirties - we will be shown the Volga-Don Canal, which was one of the great buildings of communism, musical competitions, and not only. They will show us how life itself is changing, how the achievements of the Soviet government made the dreams of ordinary people a reality. And although the scenario line with Byvalov is reduced to humor, it reflects reality (which is still relevant).
Now it should be said about an important point that somewhat spoils the overall impression, namely the crooked installation, and the author of this review watched the color version of the painting, which was castrated in the fifties of the last century, and the original of 1938 has not been preserved (thank you tell the Cornhusker for this), so we cannot enjoy the original version. And it's lucky that they didn't paint the fully castrated version, because there is a black-and-white version from 1961, from where all mentions of Stalin, his images and busts were cut out. The installation was done very poorly and the glues are visible (this is written by a person who has been engaged in installation for a long time).
Separately, the author of this review wants to thank the artists Igor Ilyisky (bureaucrat Byvalov), Lyubov Orlova, Andrei Tutyshkin, Vladimir Volodin (old pilot), and all the others for the talented performance of their roles in this musical comedy. Now their acting will seem too "pompous" to many, but they tried anyway, and it's not for nothing that the picture has gained well-deserved popularity, and it's not for nothing that it has gained cult status in the country. You need to know the classics!
A score of 8 out of 10 and a recommendation to watch!
