Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)

The opening scene was supposed to be: Morgunov appears besides a wall and writes a big "X" (pronounced 'h') on it. He then walks away and Nikulin steps into the frame and adds Y (pronounced 'u'), thus creating the beginning of a famous Russian curse... He then runs away, Vitzin approaches the wall and adds "DOZHESTVENNYI FILM", making it a phrase with a meaning similiar to "motion picture" in English. This scene was censored by the Communist Party officials. The film itself has a tremendously stupid plot, making it even funnier. 8/10

Fmovies: Not the best of Gaidai's creations, but still pretty good. Demyanenko was never much of an actor but he has exactly the kind of goodhearted-idiot look about himself to make his Shurik one of the favorite characters in Russian cinematography. Nikulin, Morgunov and Vitsin are back as the Keystone Kops-like trio of bumbling villains and they are quite funny, as always. Secondary characters of this musical comedy set in the Caucasus mountains are the exotic and colorful locals who are hysterical with their offbeat drinking toasts and fancy manner of speech. Once again, non-Russians won't get most of the ethnic humor (which is the best part of the movie - those toasts have become real classics), but the rest is just slapstick comedy, quite old by now, but I guess it was OK for the 60's. Very good music, especially Nina's "Polar Bears" song.

We think of Soviet cinema as very serious, but it turns out that there were in fact comedies in there. A hilarious example is Leonid Gayday's "Kavkazskaya plennitsa, ili Novye priklyuchenia Shurika" ("Kidnapping, Caucasian Style" in English). I interpreted it as a look at the challenges of trying to install the Soviet Union's centralized economy when there were these different cultures throughout the USSR, but it's the kind of zany slapstick that you'd think came from Hollywood (think "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"). It appears that both the Eastern and Western Blocs had a penchant for over-the-top wackiness in the '60s.

I understand that this movie is a sequel to an earlier Gayday movie featuring Aleksandr Demyanenko as Shurik. If this one is any indication, then the original must be a laugh riot. You gotta love the antics of the Coward, Fool and Pro, and Nina is a real hottie. This must have been one fun movie to make, and I'm sure that you'll love it.

Kidnapping, Caucasian Style fmovies. It's one of the best films I've ever seen. A really nice, good, old comedy. It's a real 10. Same good as "Operatziya Y"

He only appeared in a few films, but the idea seems to have been to make the "Shurik" character played by Aleksandr Demyanenko into a sort of Soviet version of classic recurring slapstick characters of the type of, most famously, Chaplin's "Little Tram" -- he shows up somewhere and the character remains the same but is placed in a new comedic story-line.

It works well, and this comedy benefits from being much more unifying than the previous Shurik film, "Operatsiya Y." He shows up and we're told that Shurik has arrived in the Caucasus in order to study folklore. We don't need to know anything more, but it does lead to a funny running gag, where everyone he meets forces on him way more alcohol than he can handle because he said he would be studying traditional toasts.

This movie is very funny, seeming to find just the right combination of classic old-fashioned slapstick, outright goofiness, and a good farcical plot. The story, which is based around a traditional Caucasion bride- kidnapping turning into a real kidnapping, is just enough to keep funny misunderstandings going, but not get in the way of good gags pr set pieces. There's also a lot of Central Asian local-color to be seen -- as part of the concept is taking the retiring city-boy Shurik and putting him in an interesting location -- and that's just interesting from any perspective.

Though Shurik is nominally the protagonist, a lot of the comedy show is stolen by the band of three villains (including one who has the only postwar Hitler moustache I've seen on anyone but Michael Jordan or Robert Mugabe) who channel the Three Stoges in their slapstick attempts to get things done.

Natalya Varley is a lot of fun to watch as she apparently invests her role with a superhuman amount of verve, and the two songs are both highly catchy. So on the whole this one's a winner, and just plain funny throughout.

One of the best Russian (Former Soviet Union) comedies. Very light, funny and smart. I have watched it many times and had lots of good laugh. There is virtually no Russian who has not watched this good old classic comedy.