23 Interesting Facts About the Film 'The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!' 0 6

The first viewers of the film were in Georgia. In the fall of 1975, shortly before the official television premiere, the film was shown to television viewers in Georgia as part of the All-Union Festival of Television Films held in Tbilisi. At the festival, the film took first place.

Andrei Mironov could have played the role of Lukashin. However, it was impossible to say that he was not successful with women according to the plot - no one would have believed it. Therefore, his candidacy was rejected. Pyotr Velyaminov, Stanislav Lyubshin, and Innokenty Smoktunovsky also auditioned, and Andrei Myagkov was chosen almost by chance.

Svetlana Nemolyayeva, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Olga Volkova, Antonina Shuranova, and Marina Merimson auditioned for the role of Nadia Shevelyova.

Oleg Basilashvili was initially supposed to play Hippolytus. He had already been approved for the role. However, during the filming days, his father passed away, and then the actor from the Bolshoi Drama Theater, Yefim Kopelyan, also died, which prevented Basilashvili from coming to the shoot. For this reason, in early March, Ryazanov invited Yuri Yakovlev for this role.

When Nadia lifts the photograph of Hippolytus, it depicts a young Oleg Basilashvili.

The role of Galya could have been played by Natalia Gvozdikova.

Barbara Brylska was dubbed in the film by Valentina Talizina.

For the role of Nadia Shevelyova, Ryazanov chose Barbara Brylska after watching the scandalous (excessively erotic by Soviet standards) Polish film 'Anatomy of Love.' At that time, Brylska spoke very little Russian, and some clarifications had to be explained to the actress in English by the filming crew.

In the film, Nadia is a Russian language teacher, but instead of saying 'I forgot to wear my festive dress,' she says 'I forgot to put on my festive dress.'

Alla Pugacheva and Sergey Nikitin, who performed the songs for the characters played by Barbara Brylska and Andrei Myagkov, are not mentioned in the film's credits.

Eldar Ryazanov played one of his characteristic episodic director roles in the film - an irritated passenger on the plane, who is constantly burdened by the sleeping Lukashin.

The sauna scene was actually filmed at the Mosfilm studio, practically in the basement, so despite the fact that it should be warm in the sauna, the main actors were freezing, pulling sheets over themselves.

The catchphrases of Hippolytus 'Oh, the warmth is coming!' and 'What a nasty dish your jellied fish is' are improvisations by Yuri Yakovlev, not in the script. According to the filming crew, the fish was indeed disgusting.

Besides the well-known version of the film, there is another edited version that was shown only once. In it, unlike the original, the first episode ends earlier.

As a typical house at 3rd Builders Street, 25, two panel houses located in the Moscow district of Troparyovo-Nikulino at the addresses: Vernadsky Avenue, 113 (Nadia Shevelyova's house), and Vernadsky Avenue, 125 (Zhenya Lukashin's house) were filmed. In reality, the prototypes of the 'typical' house were built according to an experimental project implemented in only three buildings on this avenue.

In 2003, memorial plaques were opened on the walls of the houses of the film's heroes - Zhenya and Nadia - one of which was stolen. On December 29, 2007, the memorial plaques were renewed and ceremoniously reopened with the participation of Eldar Ryazanov.

In one of the film's episodes, Nadia's television shows the film 'The Straw Hat.' On the screen, Lyudmila Gurchenko can be seen, whom Eldar Ryazanov filmed in many of his films. In 'The Irony of Fate,' there was no role for Gurchenko, but Ryazanov still 'featured' her in the film in such an original way. In this same episode, along with Lyudmila Gurchenko, Andrei Mironov can also be seen, who auditioned for the role of Zhenya but was not approved.

In the opening credits of the film, there is a typo: the letter 'L' is missing in the word 'exclusively' (in the phrase 'A completely atypical story that could only and exclusively happen on New Year's Eve').

In Moscow, the 3rd Builders Street existed since 1958, but it was renamed in 1963, and house 25 on this street was a Khrushchyovka five-story panel building, on which a plaque about the film was installed in the form of a briefcase with a broom. The five-story building was demolished in 2015, but the plaque was preserved by former residents.

In Leningrad, there was never a 3rd Builders Street.

At the beginning of the film, Zhenya and Galya mention Katanyan several times in conversation, who invited them to celebrate the New Year with him. Vasily Katanyan is the person with whom Ryazanov filmed documentaries as a cameraman in the 1950s. This surname is also mentioned in other films by Ryazanov - 'A Forgotten Melody for the Flute,' 'Station for Two,' and 'Hello, Fool!'.

Until 1974, when buying tickets and boarding domestic flights in the USSR, passports were indeed not required. However, by the time of the premiere, a passport was already required for flights.

The film was mentioned in 1981 at the XXVI Congress of the CPSU in the report delivered by Leonid Brezhnev: 'There is no need to explain how important it is for everything around us to bear the stamp of beauty and good taste. The Olympic facilities and some residential areas of Moscow, the revived pearls of the past and new architectural ensembles of Leningrad, the new buildings of Alma-Ata, Vilnius, Navoi, and other cities - this is our pride. And yet, urban planning as a whole needs greater artistic expressiveness and diversity. So that it does not turn out like in the story with the hero of the film, who, by the irony of fate, found himself in another city and could not distinguish either the house or the apartment from his own.