Человек-амфибия

The film is based on the novel by Alexander Belyaev.

The script of the film "the amphibian Man" a few years lying in the Studio "Lenfilm". No one wanted to take up shooting due to technical difficulties. Directed by Vladimir Chebotaryov had already had experience in popular science films, where he conducted underwater photography. He had the idea that actors can scuba dive, then, after disconnecting the cylinder and mouthpiece, go to free swimming. Thus, the operator has about a minute to shoot another double.

They found the Bay of Balaclava (Crimean Peninsula) with fairly clear water. Was bought an old fishing schooner and organized enclosure for the dolphins.

Actors Vladimir Korenev and Anastasiya Vertinskaya has been a long training dive in the pool and then started shooting. However, the crew has repeatedly been at risk because of the difficulty of working under water. In the episode, when Andrew goes under water in chains, a sailor does not keep track of her, let go, and the heavy iron chain he nearly took down Vladimir Korenev, but luckily it was backed up.

It is known that in the late 40-ies the idea of a film adaptation of the novel by Alexander Belyaev hatched in Hollywood, but refused the production because of the impossibility of its implementation, as experience of similar large-scale game of underwater photography in open water at that time was not yet.

Before applying the film, Vladimir Chebotarev and cameraman Eduard Rozovsky has consulted with divers, the champion of the USSR in diving Remu Stukalova beams and other professionals. The conclusion was encouraging: the film to be very difficult, but possible. The application was filed, but the script is approved with great difficulty, since many employees of the Studio considered such a venture a complete gamble. Exactly the same thought and Americans. When this news reached them, in the newspaper new York times published an article in which he ridiculed the future of the film, promising them "a complete failure". The publication noted that "Walt Disney himself refused to belyaevskiy film adaptation of the novel due to the complexity of underwater photography, and Russian, which run on antiquated equipment, decided to defy fate."

Ghostface Killah was in my last year at GITIS, when from Leningrad to Moscow came to the casting Director to find a singer for the main role for "the Person-amphibians". Director Vladimir Chebotarev needed on the role of the frogman artist that nobody knows. For the female lead chose the 16-year-old Nastya Vertinskaya (she was already a star after the role of Assol in "Scarlet sails"). As later told the Director he needed a guy who in the eyes of the sea, and the girl in the eyes of the sky.

The film originally wanted to shoot in the Sargasso sea, rich in flora and fauna. But due to lack of Finance had to be satisfied with the Crimea and the Black sea is sparse in terms of animals. And then the chief operator Edward Rozovsky invented to make a large aquarium in the shape of a funnel, to put rare fish and fasten in front of the underwater camera.

Part of the filming carried out in the Crimean village of castropol and under the cliff-side Iphigenia. Scenes foreign port city — on the book of Buenos Aires was shot in Baku (later in the district of Baku, in the movie "the diamond arm", will take the stage the other foreign port cities — Istanbul).

There was one dangerous incident during the filming of the film — the scene where the frogman hide from Salvatore under water, tying it to the anchor. The episode was filmed at a depth of 20 meters, in the pause Korenevo give scuba mouthpiece, and that does not work. Near REM Stukalov resets your scuba gear and gives it to the actor, and the nonstop POPs up. That Stukalova eventually developed caisson disease, Koreneva said just after the shooting. However, according to the memoirs of the operator E. Rozovsky, who filmed this episode, it was not quite so. "All I wanted to do at its best — no dirty tricks and deception. Some dangerous and risky things myself. Before you tie the artist to the anchor and throw to a depth of 18-20 meters, we together with Vladlen Kebkal, independently, carries a huge shank of an anchor, which the team is thrown into the water. At a depth of about 5 meters we were torn away from the anchor and pawaputanon (rattling chains) the state has thrown up. We realized that God spared me. So the anchor was fastened to a mannequin dressed "under the frogman", and when he fell to the bottom and picked up the clubs of sludge, removed another frame is tied with Vladimir Korenev. And all around were the divers with spare aqualungs to ichthyander could breathe under water. So they filmed this episode. And let legends remain legends."

In the scene of the shark attack on gutiere. Anastasia Vertinskaya, which was shot without the doubler, had to perform a difficult trick when the heroine from the water surface slowly sinks to the bottom it picks up a frogman.

Consultants first domestic full-length feature film, shot under water in natural conditions was an employee of the Leningrad Institute of physical culture named after P. F. Lesgaft, the diver Vladlen Kebkal and the first USSR champion in underwater sports, engineer REM Stukalov.

Anastasia Vertinskaya in the beginning did not know how to swim. In the end, underwater shooting, stand-just insure it and first passed the trails.

To suit frogman needed a fabric that would be thick enough and not stretched in the water. After a long search settled on the one from which sewed tight tights. For the manufacture of scales used an old white film. Just had a cut of 10 000 units, which was enough for four suits. They were painted with waterproof pearlescent paint, manually one by one sewn onto the overalls.

The scene with translucent swimsuit 17-year-old Anastasiya Vertinskaya are one of the first sex scene in Soviet cinema.

"Song of the wandering singer" ("a fisherman Leaves the dangerous way") was played by Arthur Pasikowski — soloist of the Leningrad Small Opera theatre.

The song "Hey, sailor, you sailed too much..." wrote the young Leningrad composer Andrei Petrov. We performed the song the jazz singer Nonna Suhanova. Singer in a cafe-shantan, where the sounds of this song, played in the then fashionable mannequin Nina Bolshakova.