Really Surprised!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

When I stumbled on the title in imdb.com, I was pained to see that the brilliant film was still awaiting 5 (five!) votes. It has dazzling ensemble of actors and actresses in it. To start with, as the film was made in the 50-s, the era of beauties on the screen, it stars Alla Larionova, a ravishing beauty with a cascade of golden hair, Klara Luchko, Vadim Medvedev. But though just to see such beautiful people is a feast for the eye, their participation is not the greatest attraction of the film. Yanshin, Vitsin and Merkuryev - they are the marvellous trio that is absolutely unforgettable. If they had never played another part in all their lives, after playing in this film they would have become immortal as actors. Their performance is witty, boysterous, playful. In one word, I will always see the three characters in my mind's eye the way they were played by the three great actors. The film crew managed to convey that playful irreality of Shakespeare when life is stranger than fiction, when everything is not what it seems. I think that had the film been known to the Western public it could have been given a bunch of Oscars even now. At least as a tribute to great actors.