Birthday of A Man from Boulevard des Capucines
On June 23, 1987 at the Moscow cinema "Mir" the premiere of the film "A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines" took place. The director of this film, the genre of which can be defined as a comedy-musical parody of a Western, was Alla Surikova.
In the first year, this film was watched by more than 50 million moviegoers, which made it the leader of the Soviet film distribution in 1987. Even if we assume that the average cost of a ticket was 50 kopecks, one can estimate what a huge profit this film brought to Goskino and the budget of the USSR as a whole. After all, the cost of its creation amounted to only 750 thousand rubles.
And the lead actor in the film - Andrei Mironov - was recognized as the Best Actor of the Year by polls of the Soviet Screen magazine. But already posthumously, because less than two months after the premiere he died. How far-sighted Alla Surikova turned out to be, who for 5 years sought permission from Andrei Mironov to star in this film and refused to shoot someone else in the role of First.
It is curious that if Alla Surikova, one might say, starved out Andrey Mironov, then she herself was starved out by Alexandra Yakovleva-Aasmyae. After all, Surikova originally planned for the role of Diana Irina Rozanova or Olga Kabo. And now, it’s probably even hard to imagine that this role could be played by someone other than Alexandra Yakovleva-Aasmyae.
Despite the fact that the film was created, as they say, "at the end" of Soviet power, and despite the fact that the genre of the film clearly claims to be classified as a western, according to the French online publication Psychovision.net
""A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines" is in fact a typically Soviet canvas, characteristic of the first hours of Soviet cinema, a portrait of an idealist who has come to bring progress and communism, if only they can be connected, into a single whole."
The presence of a higher and deeper motive than simple entertainment in Alla Surikova's film "A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines" is also noted by Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefedov:
"in the field of form, an elevated humanistic message is easily seen. Surikova and Akopov ironically remind their compatriots of the old belief (very Russian, as many thinkers believe) that there are no incorrigible natures - that anyone will become a worthy person once they get into the appropriate environment, or at least would like to... meet a good person. And most importantly, this is beneficial (cultural or even missionary!) activity does not tolerate even a small - in a miserable three days - break, when an experienced soul catcher will definitely appear, using... a wonderful invention for stirring up base passions. I cannot but note that the call sounded extremely relevant precisely in the midst of "perestroika", warning of the perniciousness of the ideals of purity and indulgence of undemanding philistine tastes, imposed almost officially. Unfortunately, the call was not heeded...""
Modern moviegoers, despite the fact that more than 30 years have passed since the release of Alla Surikova's film "A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines" and a whole era has changed, evaluate the film no less highly than the audience of the late 80s of the last century. 72% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. And 25%, every fourth (!), gave the film the highest score - 10.
With this in mind, the rating of Alla Surikova's film "A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines" according to FilmGourmand version was 8.033, which allowed it to take 674th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
