Savely Kramarov Movies
He was never considered among the Soviet Union's great thespians, nor was he a dashingly handsome hunk, but a lack of looks and dramatic talent did not prevent Savely Kramarov from becoming one of his country's most popular comedians of the '60s and '70s. Back then audiences adored his goofy crossed eyes and stupid, slack-jawed portrayal of the everyday Joe. Of the 42 Soviet films in which he appeared, his most popular were Trembita (1968), The Twelve Chairs (1970), Gentlemen of Fortune (1972, featuring one of his largest roles), Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession (1973), the television mini-series Long Recess (1976).Kramarov began his career after graduating from the Soviet State Film School. At the peak of his popularity in 1979, Kramarov shocked his fans by publicly announcing his desire to leave Russia and live in Israel. The authorities allowed him to leave in the early '80s, but instead of emigrating to Israel, he moved to the U.S. Just before leaving, Kramarov called himself "a prisoner of my own success" and claimed that no one would be allowed to see his films and television shows after he departed. Kramarov was right. As with all celebrities considered traitors of enemies of the state, Kramarov became persona non grata in the Soviet Union. His name was removed from film credits, and no biographies or mention of his name in print was allowed until the late Perestroika period (late '80s). By the time of his death in 1995, Kramarov's films were again becoming popular in Russia.
During the 13 years he spent in the United States, Kramarov underwent surgery to repair his crossed eyes, and then forged a sporadic, and largely non-descript career as a character actor. His most famous roles in American films included that of a KGB operative/hot-dog vendor in Moscow on the Hudson (1984), and a cosmonaut in 2010 (1984). Kramarov made his final appearance playing a Russian seaman in Love Affair (1994).
~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The 1939 Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer romance Love Affair, remade with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in 1957 as An Affair to Remember, became a vehicle for real-life couple Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in this 1994 rendition. The well-worn story remains the same, as a man and a woman, both engaged to other people, fall madly in love while traveling, indulge in a brief but intense affair, then agree to part and sort out their feelings. They are to meet again at the top of the Empire State Building if their feelings persist, but a series of unfortunate circumstances threatens to keep the lovers apart. Despite polished visuals and a time-tested narrative, this variation suffers in comparison to its two predecessors, not to mention the previous year's Sleepless in Seattle, which had drawn on An Affair to Remember for several of its most memorable sequences. It does features Katherine Hepburn's first film appearance in 13 years. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, (more)
Sylvester Stallone tries his luck with his first cop buddy movie in Tango and Cash, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. Stallone is Ray Tango, a Los Angeles narcotics cop who dresses in fancy suits, wears wire-rim glasses, and talks to his stockbroker more than he talks to his mother. Kurt Russell is Gabriel Cash, another Los Angeles narcotics cop who has long, disheveled blonde hair and dresses in worn-out sweatshirts. Together, Tango and Cash are the two best narcs in LA, which causes drug baron Yves Perret (Jack Palance) no end of distress. Since Yves controls a billion-dollar drug empire, Tango and Cash have to be taken out of the picture in some way. So Yves arranges for Tango and Cash to be framed for a crime. But the duo accepts a plea bargain that will give them 18 months in a minimum-security prison. Unfortunately, Yves arranges for their destination to be diverted to a maximum-security hell-hole where Yves's minions proceed to torture Tango and Cash --although they still have time to trade quips with each other. Ultimately, they escape from their torture chamber and seek out Yves and his gang. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, (more)
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a taciturn law-enforcement officer from Russia. James Belushi co-stars as a wise-lipped Chicago cop. Though they go together like caviar and White Castles, they are forced to team up to collar the Soviet Union's most notorious drug lord. Thus does director Walter Hill recycle his 48 Hours formula for another unlikely star team. Unfortunately, Red Heat isn't half as enjoyable as the earlier film, owing to a lack of rapport between the two leading men and an overall lack of inspiration infecting the whole project. The one notable aspect of Red Heat is that it was the first commercial American film to stage scenes in Moscow's Red Square. Watch for Laurence Fishburne (still billed as "Larry") in a secondary role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, (more)
An ambitious father thinks nothing of using his own son to achieve his political goals in this adolescent comedy. The lonely boy has spent the last seven years tucked away and ignored by his parents, Senator Tom Morgan and his social-climbing wife Nancy, in a distant boarding school. As the story begins, he receives the depressing news that once again they will be too busy to have him home for the holidays. But then, out of the blue, they change their minds and invite him home to stay there for good. The boy is elated, but soon after his arrival, he learns the bitter truth: his father only brought him back because it is an election year and his campaign manager thought he might do better if the public saw him as more of a family man. The boy then decides that it is high time some changes were made around the house and mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jon Cryer, Lynn Redgrave, (more)
In Armed and Dangerous, John Candy plays a cop who has been kicked off the force on a trumped up charge. Eugene Levy costars as a disbarred lawyer. The two outcasts take low-paying jobs as security officers at a company controlled by mob boss Robert Loggia. In their own stumblebum fashion, Candy and Levy uncover a smuggling operation masterminded by Loggia. Meg Ryan also shows up in an early leading role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Candy, Eugene Levy, (more)
This belated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is directed by Peter Hyams. Roy Scheider plays the astronaut/skipper of a U.S.-Soviet space mission, sent to find out what happened to the missing Discovery flight that carried Keir Dullea into the beyond in the original 2001. Scheider's polyglot crew includes Americans John Lithgow and Bob Balaban (the latter a computer whiz, responsible for the notorious HAL 9000) and Russians Helen Mirren, Elya Baskin and Natasha Schneider. The reason for this international mixture is that the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and it is hoped that the space mission will assure east-west solidarity (in this respect, 2010 dates far more than 2001, given the collapse of the Iron Curtain). When the astronauts catch up with Dullea, still in orbit around Jupiter, producer/director/writer Hyams attempts to demystify the enigmatic climax of 2001. Arthur C. Clarke, author of the story upon which 2001 was based, appears in 2010 as a man on a park bench. Incidentally, the voice-over credited to Olga Mallsnerd is actually Candice Bergen. (The name Mallsnerd is a play on the name of one of the characters created by her ventriloquist father Edgar.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, (more)
Robin Williams stars as Vladimir Ivanoff, a Russian sax player working in a circus whose home life with his warm and colorful family does not compensate for his feelings of repression and lost opportunity in his native land. When the circus comes to New York, Williams goes on a shopping trip to Bloomingdale's -- where he suddenly announces his intention to defect. Befriended and given a place to stay by security guard Lionel Witherspoon (Cleavant Derricks), Vladimir makes the slow and sometimes painful transition from Russian to American citizen, helped along by his lady love (and fellow immigrant), Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso), and immigration attorney (and onetime Cuban refugee) Orlando Ramirez (Fernando Rey). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Maria Conchita Alonso, (more)
- 1977
This children's film teaches the virtues of following a mother's sage advice by means of an allegory about a mother goat and her brood of seven kids. Once, when Mom had to leave to handle business at a fair in town, she locked the door behind her and told her offspring never to open the door to anyone except herself. Obedient to the letter, the seven refuse to budge when the nasty wolf comes along and imitates their mother's voice. Needless to say, the wolf gets the door opened by hook or by crook and makes off with two of the little goats. But not for long -- he finishes up in the freezing waters of a pond and the two goats make their way back to a very happy mother. This film won the Silver Cup at the 1977 Children's Film Festival in Venice. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lyudmila Gurchenko, George Mihaita, (more)
- 1977
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A much beloved comedy, Mimino tells the story of a Soviet Georgian helicopter pilot who is called Mimino (Vakhtang Kikabidze), which means "falcon" in that language. He is ambitious to become an international airline pilot and goes to Moscow and, with the help of an old friend, tries to get a job as an international pilot. In his Moscow hotel, he meets Suren, an Armenian, and despite the supposed historical antipathy of Georgians and Armenians, they become friends. They have both pretended to be participants in a seminar on endocrinology in order to get rooms at the hotel where the seminar is being held. He has a lot of wild adventures with Suren, and on his own. Much of the comedy pits ordinary people such as Mimino, who is from the countryside, against the haughty sophisticates of Moscow. Popular Georgian singer Vakhtang Kikabidze, who performs the title role, sang a song within the film which became a Soviet hit. This film won the Grand Prize from the 1978 Moscow International Film Festival, the State Prize of the USSR, and also a prize from the All-Union Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vakhtang Kikabidze, Mger (Frunze) Mkrtchyan, (more)
- 1975
In the former Soviet Union, all apartment blocks were owned by the State. Because they were poorly built and poorly maintained, service and repair people held tremendous power, and used it. One plumber might serve a whole street of apartment buildings, and could demand whatever he wanted in order to perform even the most routine repairs, ie...extra money or a bottle of vodka (or more). In this comedy, the reality of this situation is clearly depicted. Afonya (Leonid Kuraviev) is a typical drunken, bullying plumber, extorting extra money and drink from his victims. He pals around with his buddy Kolya (Yevgeny Leonov), spending most of his "working" day in bars, drinking beer and eating crawfish and salted fish. Despite constant reprimands from the workers' committee, nothing puts a dent in his behavior until he falls in love with lovely young nurse Katya (Yevgenia Simonova), who insists that he treat people better. His buddy Kolya wants him to continue doing things the old way. West Europeans viewing this film found it surrealistic, because they could not believe the situations in it were real. Soviets, on the other hand, found it side-splittingly right on target, and it was very popular. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonid Kuravlev, Yevgeniya Simonova, (more)
- 1973
Absent-minded inventor Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko) has built a time machine in his Moscow apartment. Due to the machine's malfunctioning, his apartment complex manager Ivan Vasilievich (Yuri Yakovlev) and a suave burglar (Leonid Kuravlev) are transposed back to the times of Ivan the Terrible, while the dreaded Czar himself (also played by Yakovlev) turns up in modern-day Moscow. Since Ivan Vasilievich and his royal namesake look alike, various funny complications arise, and Shurik desperately tries to return things back to normal. This Soviet sci-fi comedy is loosely based on the play Ivan Vasilievich by Mikhail Bulgakov. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yuri Yakovlev, Leonid Kuravlev, (more)
In this film based on Russian fairy tales, a woman named Yevdokia goes off in search of her two daughters who were kidnapped by the evil Baba Yaga. Along the way, she finds help in the form of The Sun, The Wind, and the Deer with Golden Antlers. With such forces of goodness on her side, will Yevdokia be able to find her little girls? ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raisa Ryazanova, Volodya Belov, (more)
- 1971
It is 1927, and a former noblewoman's son-in-law (Sergei Filippov) hears from her deathbed that during the revolution, ten years ago, she hid the family jewels in one of a set of twelve chairs. He teams up with a charming con man (Archil Gomiashvili) to find all twelve. This film, told in a sly, slapstick style, holds many surprises as it recounts their desperate efforts to find the jewelled chair of the set, which has been scattered to the four winds. The story is based on the satirical Russian novel The Twelve Chairs which offered a keen, humorous depiction of certain Soviet types during the so-called NEP (New Economic Policy), which allowed certain entrepreneurial activities to take place. This novel has been the subject for many films -- including one by Mel Brooks--and was the basis for a popular Russian TV mini-series. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Archil Gomiashvili, Sergei Filippov, (more)
- 1971
Alexandr Sery's comedy Gentlemen of Fortune concerns a kindergarten teacher who bears a striking resemblance to a master thief. When the bad guy swipes a helmet that belonged to Alexander the Great, the teacher uses his brains and his looks to attempt to retrieve the item. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yevgeny Leonov, Georgi Vitsin, (more)
