Birthday of the Air Crew
On May 12, 1980, Alexander Mitta's film "Air Crew" was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas.
During the time that has passed since the premiere of this film, a huge number of articles, reviews, etc. have been published about it. Almost all of these materials in one form or another emphasize the following information:
- This picture was the first in Soviet cinema, shot in the genre of "film-disaster";
- in this film for the first time in the history of Soviet cinema an erotic scene was shown.
The director of the film, Boris Krishtul, in his interview with the newspaper "Arguments & Facts", cites yet another point in which the film "Air Crew" was the first in Soviet cinema. According to him, this picture is "the first produced, because it was shot not only with government money, but also with Aeroflot funds." Probably, in these words there is some aberration of memory, since at the years of the creation of the picture, Aeroflot itself, with all its giblets, belonged to the state. But, of course, the aircraft provided free of charge for shooting, albeit decommissioned for various reasons, significantly increased the reliability effect. Yes, and a symbolic fee for renting airport buildings and other aviation infrastructure allowed to save quite scarce budget funds for some other, more important goals.
I do not know how it is for others, but for me and my friends, while students, this film was very expected. The fact is that shortly before, in 1978, a book was published with two novels by Arthur Hailey: "Hotel" and "Airport". The book was wildly popular, at least in our student hostel. It was given only for one night. Well, that was in the order of things: at the time of general hunger for noteworthy literary works, all books could be obtained from their lucky owners only for one night. Not because of greed, but because of the long line of people eager for the printed word. Only books like the "The Minor Land" and the materials of the last congress were everywhere, all the outhouses were clogged with them. Toilet paper was also in short supply.
And then we found out that the novel “Airport” was filmed. True, it was not possible to watch this film adaptation for us. But in 1979, I happened to watch the Italian film "Concorde Affaire '79". My memory tells me that this was within the framework of some regular week of Italian cinema. But Kinopoisk gives data that more than 24 million Soviet moviegoers watched this disaster film. Maybe I'm confusing something. But it is not important. And at the beginning of 1980, by some unknown ways, the American film "The Concorde... Airport '79" came to the cinema club in our hostel. Maybe the country was preparing for the Olympics, and the authorities missed something ...
And against this background, we found out that our domestic disaster film is getting ready. Naturally, we were looking forward to it with great impatience, and as soon as the film appeared in movie theaters, we went to watch. I admit, the first episode discouraged us a bit: we were on a catastrophe, but here is the melodrama. But the second episode fully met our expectations. And even surpassed them. Upon leaving the cinema, we said without saying a word to each other: "Yes, we can!" Obama then made these our words the slogan of his election campaign.
Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov subsequently reflected our impressions in his review of 2013: “By the complexity of the combined shootings in the episode when the builders and their family members were surrounded by mountains, from which the burning mudflow swiftly sweeps, our masters easily put foreign competitors in the belt . Such a magnificent, so to speak, picture of an all-pervasive, raging (as if people suddenly fell into the open abyss of the underworld, belatedly remembering the Lord and began to pray) flame I couldn’t reveal it either earlier or later!"
And another Russian film critic - Sergey Kudryavtsev - a little earlier - in 2006 - explained that what we were initially discouraged by - melodramatism - ensured the success of the film: "the success of the film is largely due to the happily found technique of combining adventure and melodramatic moments in the lives of the characters, as well as the overall romance structure."
And in fact, the first part of the film, where there is everything that warms the female soul: the pregnancy of an unmarried girl, a womanizer-music lover, a bitch who turned a good man, etc. - attracted female moviegoers. And the second part, full of thrills, brought to the cinemas the male half of the audience. As a result, in the first year the film was watched by more than 71 million Soviet moviegoers. And according to this indicator, the film yielded only to two domestic films released in 1980: “Pirates of the 20th Century” and “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”.
And this success happened with the film despite the fact that during the filming for various reasons almost all the leading actors changed: Georgi Zhzhyonov replaced Alexei Petrenko, Anatoliy Vasilev replaced Nikolai Karachentsov, Leonid Filatov replaced Oleg Dal, and Alexandra Yakovleva (then Ivanes) replaced Elena Proklova.
In other words, the audience enjoyed overwhelming success with the film 40 years ago. What about modern viewers? On the sites of IMDB and Kinopoisk I found several (though very few) audience reviews that criticized this film very strongly. Mainly for technical flaws. However, nothing surprising: the authors of these devastating reviews were born three- five- seven years after the premiere of the film. That is, they can't have the slightest idea about the level of even Western disaster films, presented at least as listed above. Meanwhile, the ratings of modern IMDB and Kinopoisk users exposed by "Air Crew" are an order of magnitude higher than the ratings of the aforementioned Italian and American blockbusters.
80% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users (that is, modern moviegoers) rated Alexander Mitta's "Air Crew" rating from 8 to 10, while 46% gave a maximum score of 10.
Based on the foregoing, the rating of the film according to the version of FilmGourmand was 7,985, due to which it took 728th place in the Golden Thousand.
