In 1959, the Soviet director Grigory Chukhrai released the drama Ballad of a Soldier. The actors and the film crew did their job so well that the film of Chukhrai was nominated for all conceivable and inconceivable film awards, many of them won. What is this tape talking about and who played the main roles in it?
Short story
In the film "Ballad of a Soldier", the actors transfer us in 1942, at the very height of the Great Patriotic War. Still young Alexei Skvortsov behaves bravely on the battlefield: he personally destroys two enemy tanks, for which the command plans to award him with an order. However, in response, Lesha makes a completely different proposal: to postpone the award so far, but to give him leave for a week.
The command allowed Skvortsov to leave for only six days. He hastened to his mother, but on the way Alexey often had to linger: he would give the news to his relatives from one soldier, then from another, he would bring in a broadcast, then he would just help someone.
In one of the villages, Skvortsov meets the girl Shura and falls in love with her like he had never fallen in love before in his life. In the end, a young soldier is left with strength for several minutes to meet with his mother. After he goes back to the front. But no matter how much Katerina (the main character’s mother was called) looked into the distance, her son never returned home.
This is incredible, but after the premiere, the painting by Grigory Chukhrai received the 101 foreign awards: the jury prize in Cannes, the prestigious BAFTA award, the Italian David di Donatello award and many others, including the Oscar nomination.
The film "Ballad of a Soldier": actors and roles. Vladimir Ivashov as Private Skvortsov
Vladimir Ivashov, the leading actor, was born in 1939, so he did not get to the front by age. However, the future actor was already old enough to understand what was happening around. Apparently, the impressions of the war years were still quite fresh among all the members of the film crew, since they had achieved worldwide recognition.
Ivashov got the main role in The Ballad of a Soldier when he was only nineteen years old. At that time he studied at VGIK. For the role of private
Skvortsov, Vladimir was nominated for a personal BAFTA award.
In the film “Ballad of a Soldier,” the actors were so convincing that many of them had a career uphill after the premiere. The same was true for Ivashov - he was incredibly popular. It was this artist who recreated the complex image of Pechorin in the film adaptation of the Lermontov novel “The Hero of Our Time”, the image of the scout Isaev in the film “Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. The artist passed away in 1995, leaving behind about 50 successfully played roles in various films.
Ballad of a Soldier: actors and roles. Zhanna Prokhorenko as Shura
Zhanna Prokhorenko - a graduate of VGIK - was born in 1940 in Poltava. At the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, Zhanna studied on the same course with such celebrities as Galina Polsky, Larisa Luzhina and Lidia Fedoseeva-Shukshina.
In the drama “Ballad of a Soldier”, the actors Ivashov and Prokhorenko were both debutants, they were on the set for the first time. After the premiere of the picture, Zhanna Prokhorenko, like Ivashov, was invited to various projects with enviable regularity. Only in the 64th year, the young actress starred in six films: in the film adaptation of Ostrovsky’s plays entitled “The Marriage of Balzaminov,” in the drama “An Invented Story” by Vladimir Gerasimov and many other films that are now considered to be classics of Soviet cinema.
Among other things, the artist played a major role in the melodrama "We lived next door" by Nikolai Lyrchikov, in the film "Close Range" by Vitaly Koltsov, in the melodrama "Coming" by Valery Lonsky and the family film "Door Without a Lock" by Adolf Bergunker.
Antonina Maksimova as Katerina
The role of the mother of Alexei Koltsov - Katerina - went to the honored artist of the RSFSR Antonina Maximova. Katerina, despite the fact that her son was given a week off, was able to meet with him for only a few minutes, and he immediately went to the front. Subsequently, the woman waited for Lesha to finally return home, but he never came back from the war.
Antonina Maksimova began acting in films in 1934. It was the film Petersburg Night, in which the young artist received the episodic role of a student. Two years later, Maximova got her first major role: Grigory Roshal entrusted her with the image of the Paris revolutionary Katrina Milyar in the film “Dawns of Paris”. Then there was the role of a seaplane flight commander in the adventure film Sailors. In the 41st World War II began, and Antonina Maksimova went to the front as a radio operator. The last war years, she served in a military theater under the armed forces of the Soviet Union. And after the end of hostilities Maksimova returned to the screens soon, and no longer received the main roles in the films.
Other role performers
The actors of the film “Ballad of a Soldier” are Nikolai Kryuchkov (“The Rumyantsev Case”), and Evgeny Urbansky (“Clear Skies”), and Maria Kremneva (“Eternal Call”). Also in the frame appeared the star of the film “Investigators Know” Elsa Lezhdey.