Gentlemen of Fortune
Encyclopedia
Gentlemen of Fortune is a Soviet comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, filmed at Mosfilm
Mosfilm
Mosfilm is a film studio, which is often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein , to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production and the epic Война и Мир...

. The stars of the film include famous Soviet actors such as Savely Kramarov, Yevgeny Leonov
Yevgeny Leonov
Yevgeny Pavlovich Leonov was a famous Russian/Soviet actor who played main parts in several of the most famous Soviet films. Called "one of Russia's best-loved actors", he also provided the voice for many Soviet cartoon characters, including Vinny Pukh .-Early life:While growing up in a typical...

, Georgy Vitsin
Georgy Vitsin
Georgy Mikhailovich Vitsin was a Soviet and Russian actor.- Biography :Born in St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, in 1918 , Vitsin enjoyed a long acting career and continued performing until close to the end of his life...

, and Radner Muratov.

The film was the leader of Soviet distribution in 1972 having 65.02 million viewers.

Plot summary

The movie follows the story of an amiable kindergarten director named Troshkin who looks exactly like a criminal called Docent (Доцент, literally associate professor) that has stolen Alexander the Great's helmet at an archaeological excavation. Docent and his gang are caught by police, but Docent is imprisoned in a different jail than his mates. Since Troshkin looks identical to Docent, the police send him undercover to prison with the real criminals to get information about the stolen helmet. He must pretend to be the real felon Docent, so in order to be convincing, Troshkin, a well-educated and good-natured man, has to learn slang and manners of criminals.

Cast

  • Yevgeny Leonov
    Yevgeny Leonov
    Yevgeny Pavlovich Leonov was a famous Russian/Soviet actor who played main parts in several of the most famous Soviet films. Called "one of Russia's best-loved actors", he also provided the voice for many Soviet cartoon characters, including Vinny Pukh .-Early life:While growing up in a typical...

     as Eugene Ivanovitch Troshkin and Beliy (Docent)
  • Savely Kramarov as Fedya Yermakov (Cross Eyes)
  • Georgy Vitsin
    Georgy Vitsin
    Georgy Mikhailovich Vitsin was a Soviet and Russian actor.- Biography :Born in St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, in 1918 , Vitsin enjoyed a long acting career and continued performing until close to the end of his life...

     as Gavrila Sheremetev (Sad Sack)
  • Radner Muratov as Vasily Alibaba
  • Erast Garin
    Erast Garin
    Erast Pavlovich Garin was, together with Igor Ilyinsky and Sergey Martinson, one of the leading comic actors of Vsevolod Meyerhold's company and of the Soviet cinema. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1977....

     as professor Maltsev, archeologist
  • Nikolay Olyalin
    Nikolay Olyalin
    Nikolay Vladimiriovich Olyalin was a Soviet and an Ukrainian actor....

     as Colonel Verchenko
  • Oleg Vidov
    Oleg Vidov
    Oleg Borisovich Vidov is a Russian actor. He appeared in 50 films since 1961. He was a sex symbol of his generation in Russia, and many of his films are still played on Russian television today....

     as Lieutenant Slavin
  • Natalya Fateyeva as Lyudmila, professor's daughter
  • Anatoli Papanov
    Anatoli Papanov
    Anatoli Dmitrievich Papanov was a popular Soviet film and theatre actor.Papanov starred in some of the best and well-known Soviet films, often together with his friend, Andrei Mironov. Mostly known for his great performances in comedies, he also had serious and dramatic roles, such as that of the...

     as chess player in hotel
  • Lyubov Sokolova as Kindergarten Principal
  • Zoya Vasilkova as Sweeper woman
  • Aleksei Vanin as reformed criminal
  • Roman Filippov as Nikola (Nicky) from Pete's, brutal guy in jail
  • Anatoli Yabbarov as Mityai, criminal
  • Pavel Shpringfeld as Cloakroom attendant in theater, criminal

Film director

The film was directed by Aleksandr Seryj who had just came out of prison. Georgi Daneliya
Georgi Daneliya
Georgi Daneliya is a Soviet/Georgian/Russian film director, who became known throughout the Soviet Union for his "sad comedies" .Daneliya graduated from the Moscow Architecture Institute and worked as an architect...

 assisted him and wrote the script. Seryj used his prison experience to design many situations in the movie, and he also introduced numerous expressions from Russian criminal slang (known as Fenya
Fenya
Fenya or fenka is a Russian cant language used among criminals. Originally it was a cryptolanguage of ofenyas or ofenes, old Russian peddlers, and had a number of names. There are no convincing explanations about the origins of the words "ofenya" and "fenya"...

).

External links

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