Old Man Hottabych film black and white or color. Leningrad registration of Hottabych

In the hot summer of 1957, millions of Soviet boys and girls stormed cinemas. A new color film “Old Man Hottabych” has been released. It was filmed at the Lenfilm studio in 1956 based on the book of the same name. The author of the book about the old man Hottabych is the writer Lazar Ginzburg, who took creative pseudonym Lagin...

At the end of the 30s of the last century, Lazar Iosifovich was on a long business trip on the island of Spitsbergen, where the idea for this project was born satirical tale. Lagin got the idea from a book English writer Thomas Harty's "The Copper Jug", in which a young London architect releases a genie imprisoned there by King Solomon from a copper jug.

In 1938, “Old Man Hottabych” was published by Pioneer magazine. The story was published as a separate book in 1940; and in 1955, the publishing house released a second “version”, where not only many episodes and characters were replaced, but the book itself grew significantly in volume.

Based on the second edition, Lagin wrote a film script of the same name, based on which director Gennady Kazansky made the film. By the way, Kazansky has such wonderful films as “Amphibian Man”, “ The Snow Queen"," New Year's adventures of Masha and Viti.

For the mid-50s, “Old Man Hottabych” is a precedent in terms of the quantity and quality of special effects. A precedent in all Soviet production. The unspoken goal was to catch up and overtake Hollywood. The production of the film required special enormous efforts from all Lenfilm workshops. No expense was spared.

There were no computer graphics in those days, so the film featured a lot of combined filming, including the “wandering mask” method, which was advanced at that time. The heaviest load fell on the combined photography workshop. They even invented it especially for this film. new technology.

The Television Research Institute developed a special film camera, film and developing machine. The most difficult part was filming a flight on a magic carpet, which was incredible at that time. The flying carpet suspended in the pavilion was subsequently superimposed on the background of a flying landscape, and clouds were created using smoke.

It was the smoke that caused the tears of the performer of the role of Zhenya when he threw down the bananas donated by the Indians. But it was so appropriate that the director left the scene. This fantastic filming attracted crowds of people to the fourth pavilion of Lenfilm.

Hottabych, who at first does not understand why “twenty-two nice young people should run, fall and push each other just to kick a nondescript leather ball for a few moments,” soon becomes an avid fan and bewitches the opponent’s goal.

The goals for the match between the teams “Zubilo” and “Shaiba” (by the way, professional football players played in the frame) were specially made in the carpentry shops of Lenfilm. For example, the bar, which in the story bent and “played along” with the opponents, was made of rubber, and the goal itself was made sliding so that it could become larger or smaller at the right time.

Carts and rails were placed on the field under the gates. When it was necessary for the goal to “run” towards the ball, they were pulled by the cables. When the ball flew into the bar, it was lifted by the workers sitting below in the pit, and the bar bent.

At the small Leningrad stadium "Svetlana" they filmed an episode in which many balls fall from the sky onto the players. Before filming, the director gave each player a ball and asked them to throw them high into the air. The camera filmed flying balls against the sky, and then when scrolling back the frames, it turned out that the balls were actually flying from above.

But, since the Svetlana stadium is very small, during installation it was necessary to “complete” the stands, scoreboards and large floodlights against the general background. A close-ups The spectators sitting in the stands were filmed already at the Kirov Stadium.

Work on the film “Old Man Hottabych” began with the search for performers of the main children’s roles: Volka, Zhenka and Goga. The director's assistants announced the start of auditions, and thousands of mothers and their children flocked to the studio.

Then these schoolchildren were invited to a film studio. It was necessary to find out which of the guys could do everything that was required in the film, who could play Volka, Zhenka, Goga. Therefore, the children were asked to read poetry. Those who read with expression, with real feeling, were invited to come again. The next tasks were more difficult: they asked us to act out a scene.

The pioneers were given conditions, for example: they were walking in the forest, it started to rain; stream that needs to be crossed way back, became seething and deep. And the schoolchildren had to imagine how they were walking in wet clothes, how heavy the baskets with mushrooms were, how difficult it was to cross the stream.

In these scenes everything is conditional - there is no rain, no stream, no wet clothes. Only a strong imagination could turn an empty studio room into dense forest. And so those who performed these scenes better than others were assigned the roles of pioneers in the new film.

These schoolchildren turned out to be Lyosha Litvinov, a sixth-grader at school 82, Genya Khudyakov, from the 7th grade at school 96, and Lyova Kovalchuk, a 6th-grader at school 71. The guys learned their lessons well, behaved well in class, and therefore the teachers did not object to them acting in films.

They decided who would play whom, Lyova Kovalchuk is most similar to Goga - he was given this role. Gena Khudyakov suited the role of Zhenya, a serious, sensible boy. And Lyosha Litvinov was truly a real Volka, just as playful and trusting. But here’s the problem: Volka should be blond, but Lyosha has black hair. We thought and thought and came up with the idea: we need to dye Lyosha’s hair in light color. But will Lesha’s mother agree?

When she was asked about this, she hesitated for a long time: what if her son became ugly? Won't Lyoshin's classmates offend him and tease him as a “redhead”? But still she agreed. And then the master make-up artist Vasily Vasilyevich Goryunov made Lyoshina’s hair blond. And when Vasily Vasilyevich curled a cocky crest on the top of his head, Lyosha laughed - he liked this naughty cowlick on his head so much.

The boys had read a book about the old man Hottabych even earlier, so it was easy for them to learn the roles. True, the young artists were constantly helped by the scriptwriter Lazar Iosifovich Lagin and director Lev Veniaminovich Makhtin. At rehearsals, they told the boys how and what to say, and explained what kind of character this or that hero should have. The guys listened very carefully and tried to do exactly as they were told. The filmmakers were pleased with their “artists.”

“At that time I was already in the Lenfilm file,” recalls Gennady Ivanovich Khudyakov (Zhenka). – I just starred in an episode of the film “Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character” when I was very little, so I was invited to audition based on a photograph. In front of the camera, I and other candidates played scenes from the script, and that’s how we were selected.

The guys turned out to be simply exemplary actors. The young artists diligently fulfilled all the director’s requirements, and outside of filming they behaved modestly and were not capricious at all. During filming, Lyosha and Genya remained schoolchildren.

The teacher Maria Aleksandrovna Smyslova went with them everywhere. She made sure that the children strictly followed the daily routine and carefully prepared their lessons. Their day was filled to capacity - filming, rehearsals, classes. The boys were not always able to even run and play around. After all, they worked. They got up early, came to the shoot without being late, answered lessons for the teacher...

The main fairy tale role - Hottabych himself - was also big competition. It's no joke - Evgeny Lebedev and Georgy Vitsin auditioned for this role! But they finally approved the artist from Odessa Nikolai Volkov. When he was made up as an old man, the director immediately exclaimed: “Let’s take it!”

During filming, Nikolai Nikolaevich had to endure two hours of complex makeup each time, and it wasn’t his beard at all: they sculpted his nose from special makeup plasticine for a long time.

Filming began in Leningrad and, as is usual in cinema, not at all from the beginning of the script. The first scenes were filmed in the pavilions of the Lenfilm studio, where Volka, Goga’s room, a staircase and even... a circus arena were built. Remember the episode when Volka, Zhenya and Hottabych come to the circus? There, the poor old wizard ate too much ice cream and caught a bad cold.

In fact, Nikolai Nikolaevich, instead of ice cream, which he swallowed whole in the frame, ate glazed cheese curds, Alexey Litvinov (Volka) shares his secret. - And since there were many takes, the artist ate so many of them that after the last take he could barely breathe and kept wailing that he would never look at these cheesecakes again in his life.

The director of the film “Old Man Hottabych” was Tamara Samoznaeva. She made sure that the film crew was supplied with everything necessary: ​​film, equipment; would have premises, transport and a thousand other various things. And one of her main responsibilities was to get the animals needed for the film: elephants, camels, horses, donkeys for the caravan with jewelry.

In search of a camel, Tamara Ivanovna traveled four hundred kilometers across the Stalingrad region. I bought it from a collective farm and took it to Leningrad. By the way, in the future, this waste, unplanned in the film’s budget, had a great impact on the work: in the episode when acrobats perform on Hottabych’s arm in the circus, tigers were actually supposed to be filmed. But there wasn’t enough money for them; they spent it on a camel!

The scene where huge caravans of elephants and camels walk through Moscow was actually filmed in Sochi. At the time of filming, a circus was touring there under the direction of Kornilov, who provided the filmmakers with his animals. This caravan walked along the streets of Sochi, and during installation, instead of Sochi houses, Moscow houses were inserted, for example, the famous “high-rise buildings”.

Lagin was extremely dissatisfied with the film adaptation of his fairy tale. Natalya Lagina: “Dad was categorically against making a movie based on Hottabych. In general, I didn’t want films based on my books. And he inspired me to let them down the stairs if they came from film studios. “I write for readers, not for spectators!”

He believed, and correctly, it seems to me, that it was impossible to convey the author’s thoughts through a movie screen. Which is what happened in the end. ...They told him: don’t get involved with Lenfilm, they don’t know how to work with children. Dad asked not to put him in the credits... Fortunately, Hottabych was played by the wonderful actor Nikolai Volkov. And dad waved his hand: Volkov alone will pull out the film.”

As you already know, the audience rated the film completely differently. After the film was released, it was a stunning success. The actors traveled around the country individually and in groups for almost a year, meeting with audiences. By the end of this long marathon, the heroes openly wanted to go home: to their mother and to school.

In the first six months of release, the film was watched by 40 million people. The film's budget was 3 million rubles. For Alexey Litvinov, playing the role of Volka Kostylkov became the only work in a big movie; his fee was 2,400 rubles.

The film received several prizes: Diploma of encouragement at the 1st All-Union Film Festival (1958), Certificate of honor at the Vancouver International Film Festival (1958), Honorary Diploma at the 1st International Children's Film Festival in Panama (1971).

The film has many differences from the book:

- All removed story line with Hottabych's brother: the heroes do not travel either to Italy or to the Arctic Ocean.

— The greedy American businessman Harry Vandendalles is missing.

— In the film, Hottabych does not use spells when performing witchcraft. When a hair is pulled out, a squeak is heard.

— According to the book, in Volka’s apartment Hottabych lived in the form of a fish in an aquarium, and in the film he sat invisible on the closet.

— In the book, Hottabych with Volka and Zhenya get to the football stadium by metro, in which the genie was scared to death by the approach of the train. This moment is missed in the film.

— In the book, Hottabych turned off the engines of the icebreaker, and in the film, he turned off the engines of the plane.

— At the end of the film, Hottabych becomes not a radio technician, as in the book, but circus illusionist.

— The Genie, performed by Nikolai Volkov, came out much kinder than in the original, where he constantly threatened others.

Years have passed. Today we can find out what the boys from “Old Man Hottabych” became like. Their photographs were in the acting department of Lenfilm, sometimes they were even called for auditions, but none of them became an artist.

Volka - Alexey Alexandrovich Litvinov, graduated from electromechanical technical school, went to sea, long years worked in the subway and on railway.

Goga - Lev Vasilievich Kovalchuk, graduated from the Electrophysics Faculty of LETI, worked on lasers, now runs a research and production company.

Zhenya – Gennady Ivanovich Khudyakov, also graduated from LETI. He worked all his life at the Television Research Institute, going from a worker to the head of one of the scientific and technical areas. I never told anyone about my film childhood. Passed away on March 5, 2013.

Those who want to know how not a Soviet pioneer, but a young London architect, behaved in similar circumstances can read Thomas Harty’s fairy tale “The Copper Jug.”

In the hot summer of 1957, millions of Soviet boys and girls stormed cinemas. A new color film “Old Man Hottabych” has been released. It was filmed at the Lenfilm studio in 1956 based on the book of the same name. The author of the book about the old man Hottabych is the writer Lazar Ginzburg, who took the pseudonym Lagin.

At the end of the 30s of the last century, Lazar Iosifovich was on a long business trip on the island of Spitsbergen, where the idea for this satirical tale was born. Lagin got the idea from the book of the English writer Thomas Harty, “The Copper Jug,” in which a young London architect releases a genie imprisoned there by King Solomon from a copper jug.

In 1938, “Old Man Hottabych” was published by Pioneer magazine. The story was published as a separate book in 1940; and in 1955, the publishing house released a second “version”, where not only many episodes and characters were replaced, but the book itself grew significantly in volume. Based on the second edition, Lagin wrote a film script of the same name, based on which director Gennady Kazansky made the film. By the way, Kazansky has such wonderful films as “Amphibian Man”, “The Snow Queen”, “New Year’s Adventures of Masha and Viti”.

For the mid-50s, “Old Man Hottabych” is a precedent in terms of the quantity and quality of special effects. A precedent in all Soviet production. The unspoken goal was to catch up and overtake Hollywood. The production of the film required special enormous efforts from all Lenfilm workshops. No expense was spared. There were no computer graphics in those days, so the film featured a lot of combined filming, including the “wandering mask” method, which was advanced at that time. The heaviest load fell on the combined photography workshop. They even invented new technology especially for this film. The Television Research Institute developed a special film camera, film and developing machine. The most difficult part was filming a flight on a magic carpet, which was incredible at that time. The flying carpet suspended in the pavilion was subsequently superimposed on the background of a flying landscape, and clouds were created using smoke. It was the smoke that caused the tears of the performer of the role of Zhenya when he threw down the bananas donated by the Indians. But it was so appropriate that the director left the scene. This fantastic filming attracted crowds of people to the fourth pavilion of Lenfilm.

Hottabych, who at first does not understand why “twenty-two nice young people should run, fall and push each other just to kick a nondescript leather ball for a few moments,” soon becomes an avid fan and bewitches the opponent’s goal.

The goals for the match between the teams “Zubilo” and “Shaiba” (by the way, professional football players played in the frame) were specially made in the carpentry shops of Lenfilm. For example, the bar, which in the story bent and “played along” with the opponents, was made of rubber, and the goal itself was made sliding so that it could become larger or smaller at the right time. Carts and rails were placed on the field under the gates. When it was necessary for the goal to “run” towards the ball, they were pulled by the cables. When the ball flew into the bar, it was lifted by the workers sitting below in the pit, and the bar bent.

At the small Leningrad stadium "Svetlana" they filmed an episode in which many balls fall from the sky onto the players. Before filming, the director gave each player a ball and asked them to throw them high into the air. The camera filmed flying balls against the sky, and then when scrolling back the frames, it turned out that the balls were actually flying from above. But, since the Svetlana stadium is very small, during installation it was necessary to “complete” the stands, scoreboards and large floodlights against the general background. And close-ups of the spectators sitting in the stands were filmed already at the Kirov Stadium.

Work on the film “Old Man Hottabych” began with the search for performers of the main children’s roles: Volka, Zhenka and Goga. The director's assistants announced the start of auditions, and thousands of mothers and their children flocked to the studio.

Then these schoolchildren were invited to a film studio. It was necessary to find out which of the guys could do everything that was required in the film, who could play Volka, Zhenka, Goga. Therefore, the children were asked to read poetry. Those who read with expression, with real feeling, were invited to come again. The next tasks were more difficult: they asked us to act out a scene. The pioneers were given conditions, for example: they were walking in the forest, it started to rain; the stream through which it is necessary to cross on the way back became raging and deep. And the schoolchildren had to imagine how they were walking in wet clothes, how heavy the baskets with mushrooms were, how difficult it was to cross the stream. In these scenes everything is conditional - there is no rain, no stream, no wet clothes. Only a strong imagination could turn an empty studio room into a dense forest. And so those who performed these scenes better than others were assigned the roles of pioneers in the new film.

These schoolchildren turned out to be Lyosha Litvinov, a sixth-grader at school 82, Genya Khudyakov, from the 7th grade at school 96, and Lyova Kovalchuk, a 6th-grader at school 71. The guys learned their lessons well, behaved well in class, and therefore the teachers did not object to them acting in films.

They decided who would play whom, Lyova Kovalchuk is most similar to Goga - he was given this role. Gena Khudyakov suited the role of Zhenya, a serious, sensible boy. And Lyosha Litvinov was truly a real Volka, just as playful and trusting. But here’s the problem: Volka should be blond, but Lyosha has black hair. We thought and thought and came up with the idea: we need to dye Lyosha’s hair light. But will Lesha’s mother agree? When she was asked about this, she hesitated for a long time: what if her son became ugly? Won't Lyoshin's classmates offend him and tease him as a “redhead”? But still she agreed. And then the master make-up artist Vasily Vasilyevich Goryunov made Lyoshina’s hair blond. And when Vasily Vasilyevich curled a cocky crest on the top of his head, Lyosha laughed - he liked this naughty cowlick on his head so much.

The boys had read a book about the old man Hottabych even earlier, so it was easy for them to learn the roles. True, the young artists were constantly helped by the scriptwriter Lazar Iosifovich Lagin and director Lev Veniaminovich Makhtin. At rehearsals, they told the boys how and what to say, and explained what kind of character this or that hero should have. The guys listened very carefully and tried to do exactly as they were told. The filmmakers were pleased with their “artists.”

At that time, I was already in the Lenfilm card index,” recalls Gennady Ivanovich Khudyakov (Zhenka). - I just starred in an episode of the film “Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character” when I was very little, so I was invited to audition based on a photograph. In front of the camera, I and other candidates played scenes from the script, and that’s how we were selected.

The guys turned out to be simply exemplary actors. The young artists diligently fulfilled all the director’s requirements, and outside of filming they behaved modestly and were not capricious at all. During filming, Lyosha and Genya remained schoolchildren. The teacher Maria Aleksandrovna Smyslova went with them everywhere. She made sure that the children strictly followed the daily routine and carefully prepared their lessons. Their day was filled to capacity - filming, rehearsals, classes. The boys were not always able to even run and play around. After all, they worked. They got up early, came to the shoot without being late, answered lessons for the teacher...

There was also a big competition for the main fairy tale role - Hottabych himself. It's no joke - Evgeny Lebedev and Georgy Vitsin auditioned for this role! But they finally approved the artist from Odessa Nikolai Volkov. When he was made up as an old man, the director immediately exclaimed: “Let’s take it!”

During filming, Nikolai Nikolaevich had to endure two hours of complex makeup each time, and it wasn’t his beard at all: they sculpted his nose from special makeup plasticine for a long time.

Filming began in Leningrad and, as is usual in cinema, not at all from the beginning of the script. The first scenes were filmed in the pavilions of the Lenfilm studio, where Volka, Goga’s room, a staircase and even... a circus arena were built. Remember the episode when Volka, Zhenya and Hottabych come to the circus? There, the poor old wizard ate too much ice cream and caught a bad cold. In fact, Nikolai Nikolaevich, instead of ice cream, which he swallowed whole in the frame, ate glazed cheese curds, Alexey Litvinov (Volka) shares his secret. - And since there were many takes, the artist ate so many of them that after the last take he could barely breathe and kept wailing that he would never look at these cheesecakes again in his life.

The director of the film “Old Man Hottabych” was Tamara Samoznaeva. She made sure that the film crew was supplied with everything necessary: ​​film, equipment; would have premises, transport and a thousand other various things. And one of her main responsibilities was to get the animals needed for the film: elephants, camels, horses, donkeys for the caravan with jewelry.

In search of a camel, Tamara Ivanovna traveled four hundred kilometers across the Stalingrad region. I bought it from a collective farm and took it to Leningrad. By the way, in the future, this waste, unplanned in the film’s budget, had a great impact on the work: in the episode when acrobats perform on Hottabych’s arm in the circus, tigers were actually supposed to be filmed. But there wasn’t enough money for them; they spent it on a camel!

The scene where huge caravans of elephants and camels walk through Moscow was actually filmed in Sochi. At the time of filming, a circus was touring there under the direction of Kornilov, who provided the filmmakers with his animals. This caravan walked along the streets of Sochi, and during installation, instead of Sochi houses, Moscow houses were inserted, for example, the famous “high-rise buildings”.

Lagin was extremely dissatisfied with the film adaptation of his fairy tale. Natalya Lagina: “Dad was categorically against making a movie based on Hottabych. In general, I didn’t want films based on my books. And he inspired me to let them down the stairs if they came from film studios. “I write for readers, not for spectators!” He believed, and correctly, it seems to me, that it was impossible to convey the author’s thoughts through a movie screen. Which is what happened in the end. ...They told him: don’t get involved with Lenfilm, they don’t know how to work with children. Dad asked not to put him in the credits... Fortunately, Hottabych was played by the wonderful actor Nikolai Volkov. And dad waved his hand: Volkov alone will pull out the film.” As you already know, the audience rated the film completely differently. After the film was released, it was a stunning success. The actors traveled around the country individually and in groups for almost a year, meeting with audiences. By the end of this long marathon, the heroes openly wanted to go home: to their mother and to school.

In the first six months of release, the film was watched by 40 million people. The film's budget was 3 million rubles. For Alexey Litvinov, playing the role of Volka Kostylkov became the only work in a big movie; his fee was 2,400 rubles.

The film received several prizes: Diploma of Honor at the 1st All-Russian Film Festival (1958), Certificate of Honor at the Vancouver International Film Festival (1958), Diploma of Honor at the 1st International Film Festival for Children's Films in Panama (1971).

The film has many differences from the book:

— The entire storyline with Hottabych’s brother has been removed: the heroes do not travel either to Italy or to the Arctic Ocean.

— The greedy American businessman Harry Vandendalles is missing.

— In the film, Hottabych does not use spells when performing witchcraft. When a hair is pulled out, a squeak is heard.

— According to the book, in Volka’s apartment Hottabych lived in the form of a fish in an aquarium, and in the film he sat invisible on the closet.

— In the book, Hottabych with Volka and Zhenya get to the football stadium by metro, in which the genie was scared to death by the approach of the train. This moment is missed in the film.

— In the book, Hottabych turned off the engines of the icebreaker, and in the film, he turned off the engines of the plane.

— At the end of the film, Hottabych becomes not a radio technician, as in the book, but a circus illusionist.

— The Genie, performed by Nikolai Volkov, came out much kinder than in the original, where he constantly threatened others.

Years have passed. Today we can find out what the boys from “Old Man Hottabych” became like. Their photographs were in the acting department of Lenfilm, sometimes they were even called for auditions, but none of them became an artist.

Volka - Alexey Aleksandrovich Litvinov, graduated from an electromechanical technical school, went to sea, worked for many years in the metro and on the railway. Goga - Lev Vasilievich Kovalchuk, graduated from the Electrophysics Faculty of LETI, worked on lasers, now runs a research and production company. Zhenya - Gennady Ivanovich Khudyakov, also graduated from LETI. He worked all his life at the Television Research Institute, going from a worker to the head of one of the scientific and technical areas. I never told anyone about my film childhood. Passed away on March 5, 2013.

"Old Man Hottabych" - with early childhood favorite fairy tale of audience generations! Magic story with exciting adventures, miracles and sincere friendship, at first glance, is completely unrelated to Odessa. But this did not stop our city from becoming the location for filming the most significant scenes of the cult children's film! Odessa film blogger Denis Polishchuk found out about what connects Hottabych and our city, what difficulties arose during filming, how the main characters rode a camel through the streets of Odessa.

"Old Man Hottabych" 1956.
Director: Gennady Sergeevich Kazansky
Cast: N. Volkov, A. Litvinov, G. Khudyakov, L. Kovalchuk, M. Blinova, E. Kopelyan, E. Vesnikand many others.

The main character of the film, schoolboy Volka Kostylkov, finds an ancient vessel in the river. Volka opens it, and a genie named Hassan Abdurrahman ibn Hottab appears before him. The guest from the bottle considers Volka his savior and, in gratitude for this act, gives him everything his heart desires. The viewer, along with the characters, is immersed in fabulous atmosphere magic, miracles, exciting adventures and even takes a flight on a magic carpet!

First connection. The role of Hassan Hottabych was played by Nikolai Nikolaevich Volkov, an actor of the Odessa Russian Drama Theater!

The film premiered in August 1957 at the end of the school holidays. In the first six months, the film was watched by 40 million viewers. Director Kazansky's masterpiece marked the beginning of the era of children's cinema. From this moment on, the country began to massively create films specifically for children.

We return to the shooting of “Old Man Hottabych”, where the director has a problem. For the scene in which, according to the plot, a powerful genie presents the pioneer with a palace and multiple outlandish gifts, wild exotic animals are needed.

The second connection. A decision has been made for a few days film crew will go to Odessa, where at that time he was touring worldwide famous circus Kornilov.

According to the script of the film, the action takes place in Moscow. This means that Odessa, with its completely non-metropolitan architecture, must be passed off as main city Soviet Union. And again Lucky case, and again Odessa comes to the rescue! To the great joy of the filmmakers, they barely had time to build a monumental residential building of a metropolitan scale, typical of the fifties, on T. G. Shevchenko Avenue. By the way, the avenue was called differently at that time. It will receive its modern, familiar name only in the mid-sixties, but for now it bears the proud name of Novo-Arkadiyskaya Street.

So, the huge and at the same time cozy courtyard of a fresh new building became the stage for filming episodes in which Hassan Abdurrahman tries to conquer Volka with all the power of his magic and sorcery!

I know what to give you, oh Volka!

What other gift?!

Look, oh Volka! This is the most beautiful of the palaces of Caliph Harun al-Rashid!

Jin plucks a few hairs from his beard. Note that in the film, as in the book, there is no famous phrase"Fuck - tibidoh." She would become a household name when she appeared in a 1958 radio play. And the next moment, a luxurious palace appears in the middle of a simple courtyard!

And there is a commemorative plaque on it.

There is a minor film glitch in this fragment. Volka, pronouncing the inscription out loud, pronounces the word “Name” twice: “... his name and the name of his happy parents.” In the text, as we see, “Name” is mentioned only once.

But young pioneer refuses to become the proud owner of the palace. And the offended Hottabych liquidates the gift, although he does not calm down!

Look, oh Volka!

All this is yours: the elephants, and camels, and horses, and donkeys, and everything that these bags, these people are filled with... All this is yours!

And the yard begins to fill with living gifts!

And we will teleport to our days and take a look at that same yard almost 60 years later!

It was through this entrance from Gagarin Avenue that animals and people presented as gifts came to Volka.

As we can see, the trees have grown and various outbuildings have appeared.

WITH inside The entrance to the courtyard has the shape of an arch through which riders rush dashingly!

In the next episode, we have an overview of the entire yard. Note the decorative elements in the left corner of the frame, directly above the arch.

The same entrance near which old man Hottabych enthusiastically tells Volka that he knows what gift he deserves!

Witnesses of the filming recall that the process lasted long and grueling. Moreover, it was sizzling, hellish heat!

Even elephants, adapted to such climatic conditions, could not withstand the heat!

Despite the heat, Hassan Hottabych continues to persuade Volka to accept him generous gifts or at least sell everything to the public.

You will have money! Much money. And money is fame, money is as many friends as you like!

Well, judge for yourself, Hottabych, who needs fame and friends for money?!

No, really better death than to become a speculator!

A controversial statement in fact... But the guys persuade Hottabych to forget about everything, make animals, people and strange spices invisible and go to the circus. But don't just go or go. And make a voyage on your own live transport!

This actor, the “ship of the desert,” was purchased specifically for filming. His further fate unknown. Rumor has it that it was given as a gift to some wealthy Odessa resident; according to other information, it was given to a zoo.

Going to the circus on a camel is always a holiday! The main characters moved from the courtyard we loved to one of the alleys on the same T. G. Shevchenko Avenue. We look carefully at the long corner balcony to the left of Volka.

This is what it looks like today. It is obvious that Odessa has become much greener.

We continue our journey together with Hottabych and his friends and do not forget to peek into modern Odessa.

The houses in the frame, although new, are rather low for the capital. We can easily notice that the artists’ hand has added two floors, turning Odessa’s four-story buildings into six-story buildings. And for greater persuasiveness, the legendary metropolitan high-rise has been added to the background.

But the trio of balconies, like the arch in the distance, remained virtually unchanged.

Next our path awaits unexpected turn. Either the characters in the film really decided to ride a camel to the circus, or the film crew got so carried away that they allowed their friends to ride a camel to the circus. historical center Odessa.

This time, in addition to the already familiar fake high-rise building in the frame, we see completed road lights and other houses. The only natural decoration is the house to the right of Hottabych’s back.

Odessa residents can easily recognize it as the legendary Navrotsky house built in 1891.

Having driven around the city to my heart's content, best traditions cruise companies, Hottabych returns the camel and children to the place, to the house on Novo-Arkadiyskaya Street, from which the trio went for a walk.

But then suddenly...

This fun company it was high time to stop. Which is what the inimitable Evgeniy Yakovlevich Vesnik does in the guise of a policeman. The fact is that the camel under the control of Hassan Hottabych accidentally broke the rules traffic driving through a red light. But the genie found this reason for stopping to be unfounded and Volka, under the influence of magic spells, spoke to law enforcement agencies as follows:

How dare you, O despised guardian, detain me during the precious hour of my walk?!

I am the most outstanding youth of this city!

Okay, young man, the department will figure out what the ham has to do with it!

We must comply!

Well, then, to Hottabych Once again had to save a delicate situation that he himself, in fact, created. It’s good to be a powerful genie and wizard: he made a mess, and when the time comes to answer, he convinced everyone that nothing of the kind happened and disappeared!

And when they and the camel disappear, we clearly see the facade of the house, where serious passions were seething a moment ago.

Today everything looks like this.

Odessa is ready again and again Hard time come to the aid of directors, trying on any images. Actress from God!

More than half a century ago, a color film was released on Soviet screens "Old Man Hottabych". Boys and girls were ready to stand for hours at the doors of cinemas to watch Volka and the genie soar through the clouds on a magic carpet. The “flights” of the main characters were far from the only special effects in the film that stunned the imagination of audiences in the late 1950s. Even though then computer graphics and there was no trace of it, “Old Man Hottabych” became an example of the incredible ingenuity and skill of its creators.

As is known, as a valuable historical source You can use not only old photographs and newsreels, but also feature films. Of particular interest are Soviet color films from the 1950s, when the use of color photography in the USSR was still relatively rare.

I suggest you look at some interesting screenshots of the famous film “Old Man Hottabych”, filmed in 1956. There are many interesting signs of old Moscow and Soviet life in general.

1. Combined shooting was widely used in the film, and not only for all sorts of “magic” scenes. For some reason the entire background of this street is painted. Is this even Moscow?

2. In the bathing scene opposite the recently opened hotel “Ukraine”, the still undeveloped Smolenskaya embankment is visible

3. Wonderful view from the roof of the Beijing Hotel. It seems that from this perspective the city has not changed much since those times (the building of the Ministry of Maritime Transport was built on Sadovaya + Moscow City appeared on the horizon).

4. Flight over Moscow from the square of three stations to Garden Ring. Unfortunately, the sharpness is poor, but you can still see the old two-story building, which no longer exists.

5. Colorful figures of elementary school children in a typical Malenkovsky yard

6. Of course, the size of the room reveals the elitism of the owners, but the decor is quite authentic

7. Authentic classroom 1956

8. Very stylish lamp

9. Combined shooting with a train
Beauty!

MORE - interior details and other -

According to the plot, the film takes place in Moscow, but in the capital they filmed only panoramas of the city and the Moscow River, where Volka found the jug. A caravan with elephants and camels - in Sochi, when a circus was touring there under the direction of trainer Kornilov. In Sochi there is also a sanatorium named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze, into the fountain of which the heroes of the film fell on a magic carpet. The camel ride was filmed in Odessa (the Moscow skyscrapers in these shots are drawn). Most of the scenes were filmed in the Lenfilm pavilions, and several episodes were filmed under the sky of Leningrad.