Birthday of the Crank from 5th B
On August 21, 1972, Ilya Frez's film "Crank from 5th B" was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas. The film is based on Vladimir Zheleznikov's story "Crank from 6th B", published in 1962.
To be honest, I didn't see this movie when I was a kid. It came out on the screens at a time when I was no longer a child. But fate has not yet commanded me to become a father-husband. That's why I watched "Crank from 5th B" much later. But by that time I had already seen the film "The Scarecrow" by Rolan Bykov, also based on the story by Vladimir Karpovich Zheleznikov, as well as the film "Love and Lies ("You Have Not Seen It Even in a Dream..."), which is considered the pinnacle of Ilya Frez's work. Therefore, when I, already being a grandfather, looked at the picture, which was the fruit of the joint work of two wonderful artists, I expected that this would be far from an ordinary work for children.
And my expectations were not disappointed. With amazing delicacy and with the finest humor, the film shows the first, childish, love, first, childish, jealousy, the first love triangle in the life of the heroes. But, most importantly, without excessive edification, a truly "adult" sense of responsibility is shown in a boy who, it would seem, does not stand out in anything.
Today, from the height of several decades (and even what decades!), which have passed since the release of "Crank from 5th B" on the screens, the scene of accepting first-graders in pre-pioneers may seem too pathos to someone. But it seems to me that this scene was inserted into the picture as a condition for the release of the film on the screen. Without this scene, some particularly zealous party censors could easily label the film with some kind of "lack of spirituality", "earthiness" and something else in the same vein. And put the film on the shelf, as happened with so many films of those years.
Probably, the same thing that I understood foreign television, in particular, Sweden and the UK. Despite all their wariness about potential communist propaganda, on January 2, 1973, the film was shown on Swedish television, and in 1978-1979 repeatedly on the BBC-1 TV channel in the UK. And in both countries, the film was a great success among schoolchildren.
In the Soviet Union, the film by Ilya Frez "Crank from 5th B" also did not go unnoticed. It was awarded the prize for the Best Children's Film at the 6th All-Union Film Festival in Alma-Ata, the Prize of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League "Scarlet Carnation" for the best film of the year for children and youth. The filmmakers were awarded the USSR State Prize.
After several decades since its release, Ilya Frez's film "Crank from 5th B" remains a favorite among moviegoers, as evidenced by its ratings on IMDB and Kinopoisk sites. 81% of users of these sites gave the film scores from 8 to 10. And 48%, almost every second user (!), gave the film the highest score - "ten".
With that said, the rating of Ilya Frez's film "Crank from 5th B" according to Filmgourmand is 8,249, which allows it to take 448th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
