The film "Fire, water and ... copper pipes": actors, roles, film crew and interesting facts

Alexander Rowe is a Soviet director who presented cinematograph with a lot of magnificent fairy tales. Among them there is a picture "Fire, water and copper pipes", the actors of which managed to create in the frame a magical, unique atmosphere. How did the movie masterpiece work? And who from the famous artists got the role in the project?

Film crew

The film crew of the film "Fire, Water and Copper Tubes" is first of all Alexander Rowe and his faithful comrades Mikhail Volpin and Nikolai Erdman.

At the time when the shooting of the new fairy tale was starting (and this was 1967), Rowe has already released, along with his friends, the movie hit "Morozko." Not wishing to address other script writers, the director again invited Erdman and Volpin to work in his film, entrusting the story line and dialogues of the characters to professionals.

Dmitri Surensky stood behind the camera. With this cameraman, Alexander Rowe made his best screen works: Varvara-Krasa, Long Spit, Morozko, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, etc.

Music for the film was written by Nikolai Budashkin, who also voiced the Captains of the Blue Lagoon and the cartoon "The Scarlet Flower".

Short story

Around what events was built the plot of the fairy tale "Fire, water and copper pipes"? Actors Alexei Katyshev and Natalya Sedykh play a young man and a girl who happened to meet at the edge of the forest. Alyonushka immediately liked Vasya. But the insidious Kashchei Immortal also looked at the sweet girl and kidnapped her.

Having mustered courage, Basil goes in search of his beloved. To get to the lair of Kashchei, the boy has to go through fire and water. But the most difficult test awaits him ahead: Basil will have to choose what is more dear to him - the salvation of Alyonushka or glory and wealth?

"Fire, water and copper pipes": actors. Natalia Sedykh in the role of Alyonushka

Natalia Sedykh, the performer of the role of Alyonushka, was born on July 10, 1948. According to the sign of the zodiac, the artist is Cancer.

From the age of 4 Natalia was engaged in figure skating on ice. The girl quickly became famous, and at 15 she was already shown on the central television. Just then, in the 60's, Alexander Rowe was looking for some elegant beauty for the role of Alyonushka in his famous fairy tale "Morozko." The usual theater actresses did not suit the director, but he drew attention to the elegant ballerina. So Natalia Sedykh became an actress even earlier than the famous ballerina.

In the film "Fire, Water and Copper Tubes" actors Alexei Katyshev and Natalya Sedykh quickly found a common language: they were the only performers with no acting background. However, Rowe confirmed them to the main roles, because he considered the texture of artists appropriate.

Alexander Row literally "discovered" the name of Natalia Sedykh. Soon she became a ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater and performed on the same stage with Maya Plisetskaya and Maris Liepa. But in the cinematography of the dancer there was no place. After collaborating with Rowe, the actress played just a couple of roles - in the drama "Blue Ice", in the musical film "Love for Three Oranges" and in the comedy "The streets were the chest of drawers". Then Sedykh disappeared from the screens forever and focused on the theatrical career.

Alexei Katyshev in the role of Vasya

Actors of the film "Fire, water and copper pipes" were respected people in Soviet cinema. But Alexei Katyshev, the performer of the role of Vasya, was not only unknown to the public, but also had no relation to the acting profession.

Alexey worked at the Yalta Film Studio as an assistant to the sound engineer. Alexandra Row was subdued by the blue eyes of the young man and his light curls. This is exactly what the director of a good young man imagined. Rowe took the novice actor in the fairy tale "Fire, water and copper pipes," and a year later he invited Alexei to the film "Varvara-Krasa, a Long Spit."

After the successful film debut, Alexei had to leave to serve in the army, and when he returned, Row was no longer alive. No one wanted to shoot Katyshev. He appeared in two more films: "Spring Fairy Tale" and "About Vitya, about Masha and the Marine Corps", and then got a job as a milk truck driver and worked in this position until the 90s.

The actor ended his days in poverty: relatives survived him from the apartment, so Alexei lived with his colleague. He died in 2006 after being beaten on the street.

"Fire, water and brass pipes" (fairy tale): actors in the second plan

Although the main characters of the film are Alyonushka and Vasya, the "decorations" of the fairy tale are covered in episodes. In the frame of the main characters are surrounded by colorful characters, played by great masters of cinema and theater.

The brightest star of the screen action - George Millar. It seemed that this actor will play even a stone if it is required. Millar Roe commissioned three roles at once: Kashchei, Baba Yaga and a comic firefighter.

Vera Altay, well-known for the tale "Morozko", this time played the wife of Kashchei and the daughter of Baba Yaga.

In the image of loyal servants of Kashchei, Lev Potemkin (Tsap-Tsarap from the fairy tale "The Little Humpbacked Horse"), Alexander Khvylya (Silent Sage from Marya-Sketchka) and Anatoly Kubatsky (Jagupop from the Kingdom of Curves of Mirrors) appeared.

Artist Leonid Kharitonov - the star of films about the soldier Ivan Brovka - in the tale of Alexander Rowe was in the role of Tsar Fedul VI. This was the only time Kharitonov and Row collaborated.

Muza Krepkogorskaya, who played Masha's mother in the drama "Officers", this time appeared in the guise of Princess Sofyushka.

Interesting Facts

• The film "Fire, water and copper pipes" (1967), whose actors are known throughout the Soviet Union, occupies the 578th place in the list of leaders of Soviet film distribution (for all the years of state existence). Nearly 26 million people watched the tale. The first position in this rating is taken by the Mexican melodrama "Esenia", which was watched by 92 million Soviet spectators.
• Alexander Rowe worked for decades with the same team, and this involved everyone: from administrators and lighting to actor and scriptwriters.
• Georgy Millar played absolutely in all fairy tales of the director. Sometimes in one movie, the actor received 3-4 characters each.
• Alexander Roe is Irish national. His father worked in 1905 under contract in the Russian Empire, and in 1914 he fled abroad, without having expressed a desire to take his family with him.