Eugene, Little Eugene and Katyusha

Eugene, Little Eugene and Katyusha (1967)

Женя, Женечка и «Катюша»

War, 1944. Soldier Zhenya Kolyshkin, a fragile intellectual from Arbat, sets out on New Year's Eve to collect a parcel, but stumbles upon a German dugout. He manages to escape, but guard duty is inevitable. Zhenya's predicament is brightened by Zhenechka, a communications officer in the Katyusha regiment.

Date of release
1967-08-21
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (20)
Runtime
1h 25m
Genres
Comedy, Romance, War, Drama
Director
Vladimir Motyl

Casting

Interesting facts

Zhenya, Zhenechka and "Katyusha" is a 1967 Soviet war comedy-drama film directed by Vladimir Motyl.

Production

Vladimir Motyl came up with the idea for the script after reading the story of Bulat Okudzhava "Good health, schoolboy!". The humor and plot of the story led Motyl to the idea of a plot about an intellectual schoolboy who finds himself at war and is finding himself ill-equipped.

Many real facts were portrayed were also portrayed in the script. The story of a Soviet soldier getting lost with a parcel and spending the New Year with the Germans was borrowed from front-line newspapers. Unlike Zhenya Kolyshkin, the soldier concealed that he was in the enemy's quarters, and this was only discovered by the end of the war.

Mosfilm rejected the finished script. According to Vladimir Motyl, the film did not meet the instructions of the party and government, as well as the Main Political Administration of the Army. Then Motyl turned to Lenfilm, where he got consent to the shooting. However, after a while the script was again declined and the order of the directorate was completely closed for the same reasons as at Mosfilm.

The filming process was set in motion by chance. The picture "The Children of Pamir" by Motyl was nominated for the Lenin Prize, but during the discussion Philip Ermash, deputy head of the Culture Department of the CPSU Central Committee, made a speech that it would be wrong to give the award, as Mirshakar, author of the poem that formed the basis of the script, already had The Stalin Prize.

For the film Motyl immediately planned to engage Oleg Dahl along with other candidates. The director liked Dahl for his roles in the theater Sovremennik, and despite having little physical resemblance to the character, he was found to be suitable because of his personality. From the first meeting the actor surprised the director, by coming dressed in a bright crimson jacket.

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