Meetings with Leonid Bykov. Masters of aerobatics

Making films about war is extremely difficult. Time does not spare either people or equipment that took part in the hostilities. In the film “Only “old men” go into battle, the role of La-5 and Messerschmitt fighters was played by training machines that never smelled gunpowder, created after the war. But the actor aircraft looked quite believable.

The correspondent of "FACTOV" asked the pilots - participants in the filming, masters of sports in aerobatics Viktor Solovyov and Anatoly Lugovsky, to talk about how technical reliability was achieved.

"To make it look like a La-5 fighter, the fuselage of the Yak-18P was loaded ... with concrete blocks"
- In the spring of 1973, Leonid Fedorovich Bykov came to our airfield "Chaika", - Viktor Aleksandrovich Solovyov, the chief of staff of the Central Aeroclub named after O.K.Antonov, recalls. - Explained what is required of us.

We already had experience of participating in such cases. Moreover, former front-line soldiers Volodymyr Vololoven, head coach of the Ukrainian national aerobatics team Valentin Koval, Leonid Utkin worked as instructors and aircraft technicians in our flying club ... The consultants of the film were Colonel-General of Aviation, Hero Soviet Union Semyon Kharlamov and Honored Military Pilot of the USSR Anatoly Ivanov, head of our flying club Nikolai Titovsky.

Earlier, I happened to "fight" in a group of German pilots in the film "Liberation" by Yuri Ozerov, who was filmed in the Kyiv region. And for filming the famous Prokhorovsky tank battle, they chose a wide field near the village of Khodosievka near Kyiv. I flew in a group of fighters covering the tanks. We walked at low level, explosions rumbled under us - the earth flew nearby. But one day, the pyrotechnicians did not calculate something and a 30-meter column of water hit my plane from below. I was thrown up, I thought the wings would fall off.

But during the filming of the television series "Carpathians, Carpathians ..." - about the partisan raid of Kovpak's formation - it exploded right under the plane of Tolya Lugovsky. And stones flew into his car. The plane, when it returned to the airfield, had real holes in the wing and fuselage, like at the front ...

But with Leonid Bykov, all sorts of surprises were kept to a minimum. Before filming, everything was carefully thought out. Former front-line soldiers helped a lot to adapt sports cars for ground shooting and close-ups. For example, our Yak-18P had three landing gear, the third was the nose. The La-5 fighter has two struts and a small wheel on the tail. Therefore, the nose landing gear was removed from the Yak, and a wheel on the tail was welded instead. And so that the plane did not tip over forward, a counterweight was placed in the back of the fuselage - concrete blocks. And the car drove great.

"Remember, the plane burns for exactly seventeen seconds!"
- By the way, Leonid Bykov wished to learn to steer himself, - Victor Solovyov continues the story. - He said that he drives a car well, and he should not have any special problems with taxiing. My comrades and I looked at each other: flying an airplane has nothing to do with driving a car. Rather, it is closer to driving a tank.

But they put Leonid Fedorovich in the front cockpit, and the pilot sat in the back. And Bykov learned to steer perfectly in half an hour! He even flew well with our instructor Leonid Utkin.

And in the role of German fighters, we used Czech-made Z-326 sports aircraft - they have sharper-nosed engines. Painted - well, purely for you "Messerschmitt"!

The planes were painted by an artist from the film group - an elderly uncle without an arm, a front-line soldier. He used the German calendar of 1944 with excellent photographs of Luftwaffe combat vehicles, on which camouflage, crosses, numbers, various symbols - dragons, animals, aces of diamonds and so on were perfectly visible.

True, the planes, especially the "German" ones, were painted with gouache so that they could be washed off later. And at night it rained, and all the camouflage dripped! I had to paint again. The artists fought. Then someone thought of adding glue to gouache. It worked out great. But then, after filming, the technician began to wash the plane - but the paint did not wash off! When we resumed training flights, we flew over the Kyiv outskirts with swastikas for more than a week, until we washed it off.

For ground filming, we used four Yak-18Ps - they "played" our La-5s, two flying Z-326s - Messerschmitts, and two more Zetas were used for ground filming - one with a dragon on board, and the second - an old , decommissioned, which Moscow allowed us to burn. Remember, Grasshopper (Sergey Ivanov) with a dog in the cab shot down a "Messer" that suddenly appeared over our airfield, to which, burning on the ground, Titarenko and his comrades drove up in a truck? There was also a problem, by the way. Filmmakers somewhere dug up a real old "one and a half" - a one and a half ton GAZ-AA truck with a wooden cabin from the time of the war. This "exhibit" was, as they say now, completely dead. The fact is that a sports aircraft burns out very quickly, approximately like a fighter - in exactly 17 seconds. His lining is percale impregnated with varnish. And if during the shooting of this scene the car does not start in time or stalls halfway, the artists will not get into the frame, and the plane will burn down - we did not have a second plane to burn. We warned Bykov about this. Leonid Fedorovich asked the mechanics to check the engine. And the half did not disappoint. We dug the Messer into the ground, as if it had buried its nose in the fall, set it on fire. The artists drove up to him in five seconds. Frame turned out!

But I did not name all the equipment. On two more flying Yak-18PM [probably, we are talking about the Yak-18PS / site administration /] me and the master of sports in aerobatics Sergei Shchur portrayed "Lavochkins". On the third, Tolya Lugovskoy was driven by cameraman Vitaly Kondratyev, on the fourth, with pilot Utkin, Leonid Bykov flew.

And where did they find the old "maize" used as a night bomber, on which the heroines of Olga Mateshko and Evgenia Simonova flew?

He was brought from the city of Monino near Moscow. There is the Air Force Museum. The plane no longer flew, but the engine started, and the pilot Lyudmila Petrash, the champion of Ukraine in aircraft sports, taxied on it on the ground. But Lyuda, an excellent pilot, a master of sports, somehow did not immediately adapt to the small feature of the old Po-2: its landing gear did not have brakes. The speed of movement on the ground, stops - everything was regulated by the gas sector, the speed of the propeller.

But when the supposedly landing plane with female pilots had to steer in the frame directly at the viewer, that is, at the camera, and had to stop three or four meters from it, Luda obviously didn’t calculate and revved so that the maize crop went right at the camera. The operator, with eyes round with horror, recoiled from the eyepiece, and then gave a tear. Everyone who was standing nearby grabbed the plane - some by the keel, some by the lower planes - and about two meters from the camera they stopped it, restrained it.

You said that you burned only one plane. But what about those in which the artists were on fire - Romeo, blinded during the battle, could not land, and the hero of Vladimir Talashko sent a flaming car at the enemy?

For such scenes, we came up with a simple device. On the turntable, resembling a children's carousel, they installed a cabin cut off from a decommissioned aircraft. A place for a camera and an operator was equipped nearby. The artist got into the cockpit. In front of the lantern, on the hood or next to it, they put a baking sheet with burning and smoking oiled rags.

The operator's assistant tied a rope to this structure and, running in a circle, rotated it. The flame from the oncoming air flow flared up, licked the lantern, the horizon rotated - a complete illusion of flight. It seemed that the engine was on fire, and there was a fire in the cockpit. And we imitated burning and falling downed planes, of course, with the help of smoke bombs and other pyrotechnics, and scenes of air battles from newsreels fit very well into the film.

"Alexey Smirnov told jokes with a" beard ". But in such a way that everyone laughed"
- How did Leonid Bykov behave on the set?

You know, he was a very calm, simple, good man. With everyone, regardless of rank. No screaming, mom. I remember when they were filming "Liberation", Yuri Ozerov, no offense to be said (after all, he was also a good person, but impulsive), sometimes he burned negligent people hard. And it was very easy for us and his colleagues to work with Bykov. He explained the tasks in detail, patiently, we did the minimum number of takes, everything turned out, as a rule, immediately.

To match Leonid Fedorovich in terms of the best human qualities was the second great actor Alexei Makarovich Smirnov - a former front-line reconnaissance soldier, holder of two Orders of Glory. The most charming person! We once walked along Chernigov (except for the "Seagull", the shooting was partially carried out in the floodplain of the Desna, as well as in the area of ​​​​the Teterev floodplain, not far from the villages of Spartak and Kodra, we helped film the scenes of our pilots searching for German tanks disguised as haystacks). Near the central hotel we see - Makarych was surrounded by young people admiringly asking about the filming of "Operation Y" and other adventures of Shurik.

Somehow there was a break in filming. Well, we decided to celebrate the whole thing in nature in a flight way - we spread an airplane cover on the grass, put a simple drink-snack on it. They were waiting for Bykov, but Leonid Fedorovich was busy with something, Aleksei Makarovich alone arrived. Shortly before that, he was in car accident, his leg ached, it was so hard for a heavy man to sit on a tarpaulin. They put two parachutes one on one on Makarych, gave him a glass of cognac, and a table conversation began. With us was the head of the Chernigov flying club (we took off from his airfield in Kolychevka) - a big fan of jokes. And they began to compete with Smirnov. Aviator new tells. Alexey Makarovich - "with a beard". But how does he say it! We just laughed, our stomachs hurt. And he sincerely laughed with us - funny and contagious. There was no pride and stardom in him. I also remember that on the set, for some reason, Smirnov walked around with bitten lips all the time. Why - I hesitated to ask. Was young.

Vladimir SHUNEVICH
"DATA"

The film "Only Old Men Go to Battle" accurately retold events from real life

"By screws!" - the pilot's command sounds, and a fighter with notes depicted under the cockpit lantern musical fragment takes off to rush into battle. Surely you are familiar with this scene from the film directed by Leonid Bykov “Only “old men” go into battle.

It is generally accepted that the images of the heroes of the film are collective, but still one pilot deserves to claim the role more than others real prototype squadron commander Titarenko, the famous Maestro - the commander of the 152nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment twice Hero of the Soviet Union Sergei Danilovich Lugansky. It is on the basis of his memoirs "On Deep Turns" that the plot of the film is basically built. It is from his memoirs that the very name of the film is taken - “Only “old men” go into battle. What is the unfading power and attraction of this film? It is clear that money was invested in it incomparablyless than is invested in modern films. There are no breathtaking special effects in the film. Why is the restrained, sad humor of the commander Titarenko - Maestro still captivating us?

Of course, an important component of success is a brilliant play of actors. Leonid Bykov painted the image of an experienced, seasoned pilot with broad, cheerful strokes. Another important component of success is reliability and truth of life. Behind almost every episode of the film is real case that took place in a front-line situation.

Remember the episode in which the Maestro returns from a combat mission in a German Messerschmitt? To the silent question of a technician, whose role was brilliantly played by the artist Alexei Smirnov, by the way, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, he utters the phrase: “Take the apparatus, Makarych! In! He waved without looking."

Such an episode actually took place in a real front-line situation. True, not with Sergei Lugansky himself, but with the commander of the 152nd Guards Aviation Regiment Vasily Afanasyevich Merkushev, who appears in Lugansky's memoirs as Fyodor Telegin. In fact, on the Messerschmitt recaptured from the Germans, he repeatedly flew reconnaissance. The Germans for a long time did not pay attention to the lone Messerschmitt, who flew over the columns of equipment, fortified positions, and headquarters on a strafing flight, apparently considering him to be their free hunter.

He brought invaluable information and at the same time remained invulnerable. In order not to bring down their own, the command warned the relevant services about the lonely Messerschmitt. But in the end, the Germans managed to unravel the mystery of this aircraft. During the next sortie on a combat mission, he was hit and barely made it to our positions. Merkushev was glad that he got to his own.

But the infantrymen who surrounded the Messerschmitt thought differently, and no matter how Merkushev tried to prove that he was his own, they did not believe him. Even the use of strong Russian expressions, which worked well for identification in such cases, did not help. In general, before he got to the headquarters of our infantry unit, he got it hard.

When the pilots of the regiment came for him in a car, they barely recognized him. After this incident, Merkushev spent two weeks in the hospital. “Well, the evil guys got caught,” he joked about the foot soldiers. Because of them, probably, the Nazis near Rostov got stuck. Remember, the Maestro from the movie also got into a similar situation.

Tragicomic cases, like the one when the Maestro returns from a sortie on a horse, also happened at the front, and with many pilots. Ivan Kozhedub once got into such a situation, landing on a field soaked with rain in order to help out a comrade from an overturned during an emergency landing or, as the pilots put it, a “capoted” aircraft.

The comrade was rescued, but they could not take off: the landing gear got stuck. It's good that they sat on the territory occupied by our troops. We had to get to the airfield on broken front roads on horseback.

1944 Commander of the 152nd Guards. IAP Guards. Captain Sergei Lugansky.

“- Of course, I could have done more, but you, Comrade Commander, scared away all the Germans with your underwear ...”

(“Grasshopper” - Film “Only “old men” go into battle.)

“... I remember that a young pilot Ivan Wet came to our regiment. The neck is thin, the eyes are childish. Fresh from flight school. It seems that on the very first day on takeoff, Ivan Mokry's plane crashed into another plane - and both were out of order. Wild case! What was to be done with Wet? Judge! Punish himself? .. I scolded him for what the light is worth. He only blushed in embarrassment and shrugged helplessly.

- Do not talk with your hands! Stand properly!

"I'm sorry, Comrade Captain..."

- Kru-gom! To hell, in the dugout! We'll talk in the evening.

Imagine my surprise when, looking back after a few steps, I saw that Ivan, standing on all fours, was catching grasshoppers with his cap. This is after catching up!..

A shot from the film “Only “old men” go into battle (artist Sergei IVANOV).

In the evening on general meeting a penalty was imposed on Ivan: to remove him from flying, not to give a hundred grams, to appoint him on duty at the airfield forever.

Ivan Wet is bored.

And it is not known what would have become of the young pilot if not for the accident.

Somehow, just before evening, four Messerschmitts suddenly flew into our airfield. We rushed through the cracks. The situation is hopeless: the Germans will shoot down any plane on takeoff like a partridge.

"Messerschmitts" go on the attack. Our planes are gone!

And suddenly we all see: Ivan Wet, waving his arms, runs headlong to the nearest Yak. And the Germans are already watering the airfield with machine guns.

Ivan quickly jumped into the cab. The motor started. - He's crazy! Telegin said almost with a groan.

- They will shoot down, as ... Eh!

And the Yak has already run up and off the ground.

- Well! .. - and Fedor Telegin even frowned, looking at how the Messerschmitt came into the attack. Now there is only one line and...

Unexpectedly, the Yak pulled itself up, towards the diving enemy, fired machine guns from a long distance - and the Messerschmitt, without leaving the peak, crashed into the ground.

We were dumbfounded. Here is the number! How did he manage to get into this position?

And the Yak soared up and went into the cloud.

Angry "Messers" rushed after the daredevil. There were no planes to be seen behind the cloud.

Telegin was the first to come to his senses.

- By cars!

We jumped out of the cracks.

But then a plane engulfed in flames appeared from the cloud. Blazing, it fell vertically to the ground.

Everyone involuntarily took a step back. Lost our Wet...

“Flew off,” someone whispered.

The plane crashed on the ground, there was an explosion.

- Nurses! I shouted.

An ambulance was already speeding across the field.

I jumped on the running board.

Before we had time to drive up to the place where the plane crashed, someone, having seen on the preserved tail sinister cross, exclaimed with surprise and joy:

- So this is ... Look!

And as if in confirmation of our sudden discovery, we heard the crackling of machine gun bursts in the sky. There was still a fight going on. That's Ivan Wet!

The remaining two "Messerschmitts" shamefully fled, and Ivan, appearing over the airfield, again struck us: first of all, he famously performed the traditional "barrels" - a coup over the wing - two, according to the number of downed aircraft, and then landed the plane so cleanly, so skillfully, that even the "old people" envied.

Everyone rushed to Ivan - pilots, technicians, waitresses. Jumping to the ground, he fell into the frantic embrace of friends. They rocked him to the point of stupefaction, Kissed, squeezed, Ivan did not have time to answer questions.

A shot from the film “Only “old men” go into battle. Triumph of the Grasshopper.

In the evening we honored the newly minted ace. A formal dinner was prepared. A few days later, for courage and courage, Ivan Wet received the Order of the Red Banner. Since then, he has invariably taken off for all responsible heavy tasks ... ".

As you can see, there was a "Grasshopper"! And in real front-line reality, he shot down not one, as shown in the film, but two enemy aircraft (for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Star, and not the Red Banner - ed.)! However, in the film, Leonid Bykov "limited himself" to one downed aircraft. looked too fantastic real truth The audience wouldn't believe it!

But who is this young talented pilot from the 270th Fighter Aviation Regiment? How was his fate?

Many times, visiting TsAMO RF in Podolsk, I tried to solve this “rebus”. And all to no avail! Something was wrong here...

The answer came unexpectedly - what if the names real heroes memoirs of Sergei Lugansky changed, "hidden" under pseudonyms?

And there is! The real commander of the 270th Fighter Aviation Regiment during the events described was not Fedor Telegin, but Hero of the Soviet Union Major Vasily Afanasyevich Merkushev!

Sergey Lugansky changed his name in the book (let me remind you - his memoirs were published in 1963, when printing was under the watchful eye of censorship - auth.).

And the reason was the following: on June 4, 1944, during a sortie over the occupied territory of Moldova, Vasily Merkushev's fighter was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire. Pilot in last moment left the burning car by jumping out with a parachute. So the commander of the air regiment Merkushev was captured. His fate almost exactly repeated the fate of the pilot Astakhov - the main character of the feature film "Clear Sky", filmed in 1961 by director Grigory Chukhrai.

After Vasily Merkushev was shot down, the aviation fighter regiment was headed by Sergei Lugansky (by Order of the NPO of the USSR No. 016 of 05.02. Battle of Kursk and in the battles in the Right-Bank Ukraine, 270 IAP received the rank of Guards and was transformed into 152 GIAP - auth.).

And a few days after taking office, the new regiment commander himself almost died, attacked by a pair of German "hunters" during landing. Lugansky's fighter had already released the landing gear when the warning came from the ground. The wingman, a young pilot, managed to shoot down his partner ace of the Luftwaffe, but he himself came under fire - only two aircraft remained in the air. Lugansky was saved by the fact that when the landing gear was extended, his fighter “sank” a little and the enemy line went higher ...

The personalized fighter of Sergei LUGANSK is a gift from Alma-Ata Komsomol members.

While the Yak-1 was retracting the landing gear, the German pilot managed to fire another burst - the cockpit lantern and the instrument panel were broken ... Then it was Lugansky's turn to go on the attack. Lightened to the limit "Yak" (almost without fuel! - auth.) obediently went into a deep turn and quickly ended up in the tail of the Messerschmitt - the Soviet ace pressed the trigger. At first, pieces flew off from the Messer, and then a projectile from an aircraft gun hit the engine exactly. Having made an emergency landing on the edge of the airfield, the "expert" of the Luftwaffe had about 70 air victories on his account.

Lugansky had a chance to meet in a training duel with an American pilot. In the spring of 1944, a US delegation visited the regiment, and one of its members, Colonel Bont, expressed doubts about the flying qualities of the Yakov with plywood wing covering. Lugansky immediately offered him a competition in the sky. Already from the second approach, the Soviet pilot hung in the tail of the "King Cobra" of the American colonel, and no matter how the latter tried, he could not do anything ....

In total, during the war years, Sergei Lugansky carried out 390 sorties and shot down 37 enemy aircraft personally and 6 in a group.

However, let us return to his worthy student - "Ivan Wet". Who is behind this name?

After a long and careful analysis, I found that real name Pilot - Guards Lieutenant KISELEV Boris Mikhailovich, born in 1923, b. in the village Kunakovo, Lokhvitsky district, Moscow region (mother Kiseleva Maria Yakovlevna lived near the city of Kolomna, Moscow region - at the station Shchurovo, at Lenina street, house No. 3 - auth.).

Fragment of the book by Mikhail Bykov "All aces of Stalin 1936-1953".

In the film “Only “old men” go into battle, the screen hero “Grasshopper” does not die, but reality turned out to be much more severe - on May 29, 1944, the commander of the guard, Lieutenant Boris Kiselev, defending Il-2 attack aircraft in an unequal air battle, was seriously injured in his right side and arm, which, obviously, he managed to report to his comrades by radio. He tried to save the combat vehicle, but was then forced to leave the burning aircraft. The parachute never opened...

Sergey Lugansky himself wrote about this in the award list of the pilot, presenting him for the award. Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree. Posthumously.

Fragment of the last award sheet of Boris Kiselev.

The report on the irretrievable losses of the 12th Guards Fighter Aviation Division says: "... On May 30, 1944, he died in an air battle while performing a combat mission in the Largo area, which is northwest of 20 km of the city of Yassy." In the column "where is buried" there is a dash.

In the lists immortalized on mass graves Guard Lieutenant KISELEV Boris Mikhailovich, awarded two Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st Art. and the Red Star, does not appear anywhere. This was shown by a scrupulous check of the passports of the Braisk graves, which are stored in the TsAMO of the Russian Federation.

A shot from the film “Only “old men” go into battle.

Where did the notes come from

However, there is not a word about one important line of the film in Sergei Lugansky's book. This is the orchestra, which in the film plays a pivotal role in the development of the plot. And such an important and successful find as the image of notes on the Maestro's plane is completely absent in Lugansky's memoirs. Meanwhile, in real life the pilot really fought the Nazis, who painted this life-affirming image on his plane, "for everything is transient, and only music is eternal."

This pilot is the squadron commander of the 7th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment, Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Emelianenko. On his Il2 attack aircraft, the notes of a musical fragment and the badge of the guard were depicted, which is fully consistent with what is shown in the film. And it wasn't some foppishness. Vasily Emelianenko had the full moral right to do this, since before entering the flight school he studied at the Moscow Conservatory at the Faculty of Composition, class of Viktor Arkadyevich Bely.

But in 1932, the cry “Komsomolets on the plane!” sounded in the country. and Emelianenko, among thousands of other young people, connected his fate with aviation. Because he believed that at that moment aviation was more important for the country. Nevertheless, he carried the love of music through the whole war.

Some details, episodes and storylines films seem contrived, as if the filmmakers introduced them to spice up the plot. For example, musical orchestra in the second squadron. But such an orchestra did exist in the squadron of Emelianenko, who was its leader. The only insignificant difference is that he commanded not the second, but the third squadron.

In addition to Vasily Emelianenko himself, who played the balalaika, there was another one in the orchestra future Hero Soviet Union - Ivan Chernets, whose musical specialization was guitar and vocals. As in the film, Emelianenko's orchestra partners died in air battles, were injured and out of action for a long time. At war harsh laws... Music, on the other hand, gave the pilots psychological relief, so necessary for recuperating after fierce battles and constantly balancing on the verge of life and death.

Were the prototypes of the heroes of the film “Only Old Men Going to Battle” Revealed? judge the reader. Only one aspect of the story remained undisclosed: fragments of which melodies are depicted on the fuselages of squadron commanders Titarenko and Emelianenko.

In the case of Vasily Emelianenko, these could be fragments of Fritz Kreisler's waltz "The Torments of Love", which was the crown number of the front-line orchestra, or the melody "Rio Rita", popular during the war, sounded at dances to the gramophone. In the film “Only “old men” go into battle”, the songs “Nich Yaka Zoryan” and “Smuglyanka” were more often heard. However, this is already a task for connoisseurs of music.

Leonid Alexandrovich IGNATENKO

local historian, Nikopol, Ukraine.

Who was the prototype of the Maestro, who was not played in the film by Leonid Filatov, and how the director ruined the main plane.
In the film about the "singing squadron" Leonid Bykov was a screenwriter, director and performer leading role. Once he dreamed of becoming a pilot, but he was not accepted to the flight school because of an attempt to attribute age to himself and vertically challenged

The film "Only Old Men Go to Battle" was for him a tribute to his youthful dream. He wrote the script based on real events, however, taking place in different time and in different places.

While working, Bykov consulted with military pilots, and as a result, many heroes acquired a prototype: Captain Titarenko - Heroes of the Soviet Union Vitaly Popkov and Ivan Laveikin, and the captain received the surname from the pilot Dmitry Titorenko. Vano - pilot Vano Gabunia, Zoya - deputy commander of the "night witches" squadron Nadezhda Popova, Grasshopper - again Vitaly Popkov and pilot Sergei Lugansky.

The idea with the notes on the Titarenko plane was taken from the attack aircraft Vasily Emelianenko, who flew the "musical" Il-2. The phrases are taken from real life: “I waved without looking!” and “Comrade commander, I would have shot down even more Fritz, but you scared away all the Fritz with your underwear.”

In fact, there was also a "singing squadron" - it was in the 5th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment under the command of Vasily Stalin, where Vitaly Popkov served. The squadron had its own choir, and two aircraft were donated by Utyosov's orchestra and one of them bore the inscription "Merry Fellows".

In the role of Skvortsov, the director really wanted to shoot Leonid Filatov, and he saw Vladimir Konkin as Grasshopper. But the leadership of the film studio. Dovzhenko hinted that there would be no need for Moscow actors when you can shoot your own, Kyiv ones ... However, they didn’t particularly object to Konkin, but the actor was not released from the set of the film “How the Steel Was Tempered”. And Leonid Filatov still played the pilot Skvortsov, but completely different - in the film "Crew" by Alexander Mitta.

Leonid Bykov with great difficulty achieved approval for the role of Makarych comedian Alexei Smirnov. In Bykov's film, he was to play a front-line soldier, but the heads of the film studio. Dovzhenko took his candidacy with hostility: ““Do not happen to this! He has a stupid face! The director was very offended by the actor and said that Smirnov returned from the war with five awards, including two Orders of Glory, and if he is not in the film, then the film will not be. The actor was immediately approved.

The directors of the film studio did not like not only Smirnov, but the entire film. Officials were outraged that Soviet pilots were distracted from heroic deeds for some singing. At first, filming was not allowed, but Bykov did not despair and began performing in different cities, reading parts from the script as separate works of art. The audience was invariably delighted, and this information reached the management. And a little later, a letter came to the film studio from a high-ranking military official, who wrote that “Only “old men” go into battle” - this is an honest story about the war and about those who brought victory to the country, and then the film studio did not find what to answer .

In order for real war planes to appear on the set, Leonid Bykov made an appointment with the legendary pilot Alexander Pokryshkin. The general at first reacted coolly to the request - then a lot of passing films about the war came out and he no longer believed that someone would make a real movie ... But he took the script to read. The next day, Pokryshkin ordered to give the film crew as many as five planes! And not just deliver them to the airfield, but also give them a front-line look.

Leonid Bykov did not like understudies and tried to do all the tricks himself. He was not allowed to lift planes into the air, but he managed to start the engine and steer around the airfield quite professionally. True, he almost ruined the main "Yak" with notes on board - while taxiing, he accidentally hit the wheel in a hole, and the plane "pecked" the runway with its nose. The propeller blade and the rear wheel broke off along with the rack. The plane had to be urgently repaired right on the spot, since taking it away for repairs meant losing shooting days.

Pilots-front-line soldiers were invited to the delivery of the film in Goskino, about whom the film told. One of the first spectators was Alexander Pokryshkin. Ministerial officials did not like that the pilots sang songs, despite the fact that not all of their comrades returned from combat missions. In many ways, the fate of the drama “Only ‘old men’ go into battle” was decided by former front-line soldiers - thanks to their reviews, the film was released on the big screens, and Goskino even encouraged the creators of the picture with awards.
At the end of the year, the picture took fourth place, which came as a surprise to film circles - in the 70s, films about the war were not popular ... Already today, monuments to captain Titarenko have appeared in Kyiv and mechanic Makarych in Kharkov.

"Only old men go into battle" - Feature Film Leonid Bykov, based on the memoirs of Soviet pilots. It is rightfully considered the best Soviet film about the Great Patriotic War.

The idea to make this film came to Leonid Bykov's mind a long time ago. During the war years, he dreamed of becoming a pilot, but because of his small stature, he was not taken to the flight school. But love for the people of this heroic profession continued to live in him all the time. After Bykov moved from Leningrad to Kyiv in the early 70s, he decided to make his first film at the local film studio about military pilots.

In collaboration with two screenwriters - Evgeny Onoprienko and Alexander Satsky - he wrote a script based on the true events of the Great Patriotic War. In particular, under the identity of the commander of the squadron of the guard, Lieutenant Titarenko (aka Maestro), the Hero of the Soviet Union, a guy from the Arbat, Vitaly Popkov, was hiding. During the war years, he served in the legendary 5th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment under the command of Vasily Stalin, and his squadron was nicknamed "singing" because it had its own choir, and two aircraft were donated to the front by Utesov's orchestra and one had the inscription "Funny boys". By the way, Vasily Stalin's regiment reached Berlin and shot down a record number of enemy aircraft - 744, had 27 Heroes of the Soviet Union in its ranks (14 of them served directly under the Maestro, and Popkov himself after the war in Moscow erected a bust as twice Hero).

When Bykov wrote the script, he tried not to deviate too much from the actual events, although he did invent and change something. For example, he came up with new character- Grasshopper. In fact, low turns over the airfield in front of the girls were made by none other than Popkov himself, for which the commander ordered him to be banned from combat sorties for a month. But there were few such deviations from real events in the script, and the lion's share of what we see in the film is true.

This is the love of the Uzbek Romeo (the real name of the pilot was Marnsaev) for the Russian Juliet, and their subsequent death (the girl died during the bombing of the canteen, and Romeo laid down his head in one of the battles) ...

... and the habit of a mechanic to baptize planes before departure ...

... and the Maestro being captured by his own (to prove his belonging to the Red Army, he had to punch one of those who captured him in the face), etc. etc.

Meanwhile, when the script was written and sent “upstairs”, an unexpected answer soon came from there: they say, the material is not heroic. High censors resented the fact that Soviet pilots were depicted in many scenes as singing clowns. In short, at first Bykov was forbidden to stage such a film. But he did not despair. To prove the opposite, Bykov undertook ... to "run in" the script on stage. His reading of individual pieces of the script in various cities of the Soviet Union aroused such delight among the listeners that the censors no longer had any doubts about the correctness of the created work. And then people began to stand up for the script, who themselves knew firsthand about the war. In particular, on November 14, 1972, a letter was sent to the Dovzhenko film studio by the chief of staff of military unit 55127, Colonel Lezzhov. He wrote that the script he read was an honest story about the war and about the people who won the victory in it.

On February 20, 1973, the film was launched into pre-production. And here Bykov also had to face a number of difficulties. For example, it cost him a lot of nerves to approve the Leningrad actor Alexei Smirnov for the role of an auto technician Makarych. He was known to a wide audience primarily as an actor of a comedic plan, and with Bykov he was to become a front-line soldier. Upon learning of this, film officials sharply opposed: “Do not happen to this! He's got a stupid face!" But when Bykov announced that he would refuse to make a film if Smirnov was not in it, when he said that the “actor with a stupid face” was a former front-line soldier himself who returned from the war with a full holder of the orders of Glory, the resistance of officials was broken. By the way, Bykov gave the patronymic to the cinema technician the same that Smirnov, Makarych, actually wore.

A great help in the work on the film was provided by the air marshal, legendary pilot Alexander Pokryshkin. When Bykov asked for an appointment with him in order to obtain from him the allocation of real war planes for filming, the marshal was at first wary of this request. Too many films about the war came out in those years for the marshal to immediately believe in Bykov's idea to remove the "incorruptible film". He asked to leave him a script for a few days in order to get to know the material better. But it didn't take a few days. Literally overnight, Pokryshkin swallowed the script and ordered the filmmakers to issue not one, not two, but as many as five aircraft: four Yak-18 fighters and the Czechoslovakian 2-326, which looks like the Messerschmitt-109. The cars were delivered to the Kyiv airfield "Chaika", where they were repainted and given a front-line look.

Shooting of the film began on May 22 in the pavilion of the Dovzhenko studio in the scenery "KP dugout" and "battalion commander dugout". Then the filming moved to nature: at the end of May, they began filming air battles between Yaks and Messers. Here is how the participant of those shootings, cameraman Vital Kondratiev, recalls this: “For the convenience of aerial filming, I came up with a special device that was attached between the first and second cabins and allowed me to take a shot close-up right during the flight. Bykov approved my invention and immediately decided to be the first to take to the air in order to test it in action. The pilot wrote out “barrels” and “dead loops” in the sky, and Leonid Fedorovich turned on the camera, pressed the trigger and shouted into the lens: “Serge, cover it! I'm attacking!" After a few takes, the plane landed, I changed the film cassette, and the car took off into the sky again. At the end of the shooting day, Bykov literally fell out of the plane and flopped onto the green grass of the airfield. "Well how are you?" I asked, running up to him, and heard in response: “We’ll develop the film, we’ll see!”

In early June, they began filming episodes "at the airfield". Since Bykov did not like being dubbed, he tried to do all the tricks himself. And during the filming quite decently mastered the control of aircraft. True, he did not lift them into the air, but he independently started the engine and taxied around the airfield. Other times it was not without overlays. Somehow he could not calculate the course, and the right wheel fell into a pit from a pyrotechnic explosion. The plane pecked with its nose, the propeller blades flew, the rear wheel broke off along with the rack. Bykov earned a hefty bump on his forehead, but he was not upset because of this. The fact is that the accident occurred on the same "Yak" with notes drawn on board and treble clef. Since taking the aircraft to Kyiv for repairs meant losing a lot of time, it was decided to restore the “iron bird” on the spot, on our own. A prudent mechanic seized several spare blades from Kyiv, which were immediately installed on the damaged machine. But the rear chassis needed welding. And then the cameraman V. Kondratiev got down to business. He put the mutilated part in the trunk of his car and drove to Chernihiv to the station young technicians where he had friends. However, when he arrived, there was no one at the station. The operator had to "catch" them home. Having learned that he and Bykov were making a movie about front-line pilots, the masters gladly agreed to help them. The rack was welded, and the next morning the plane was ready to fly again.

Meanwhile, a new state of emergency happened a few days later: Anatoly Mateshko, who played the role of Smuglyanka, left the picture, who was seduced by the main role in another film. Next, let's listen to the story of the film's cameraman V. Kondratiev: “I remember that morning I met Bykov in the cafeteria. He stood upset and crumpled some paper in his hands. In response to my surprised look, he handed me a telegram from the film studio: “Send Mateshko to Kyiv urgently.” What can you do? Let's go to film set, and just then the director’s assistant brought “yellow mouths” from Kyiv - young guys - students theater institute who have just completed their first year. They were introduced to Bykov. He examined the novice actors with a professional look, looking for a new Smuglyanka, and settled on a nineteen-year-old boy, Seryozha Podgorny ... "

Meanwhile, there was still a month left until the end of filming, but already on September 8-10 the finale was already filmed: Maestro, Makarych and Grasshopper find the grave of two pilots, one of whom was the bride of their comrade Romeo. As we now know, the film ends with an episode when the Maestro and Makarych are sitting in the steppe near the monument, and the song “For that guy” will sound against the background of this final frame.

In mid-September, the group moved to the Dovzhenko Film Studio, where pavilions were to be filmed. So, on September 20-24, an episode was filmed in the “dining room” scenery: Grasshopper, having skillfully filled up the “Messer” in front of his native squadron, comes to the dining room, where his comrades give him a reception.

On the same days, another "table" episode was filmed: when the pilots of the "second singing" commemorate the deceased Smuglyanka. In the next few days, episodes were filmed in the scenery: “the hut of girls”, “tent”, “hut of the 2nd squadron”. In parallel, air battles were filmed.

Filming ended in mid-October, after which editing began. It lasted until December 6th. Six days later, the film was accepted at the studio without amendments, and on December 27, the tape was handed over to the State Cinematography of Ukraine. Not only the high ranks of the Ukrainian cinema were invited to it, but also those about whom, in fact, this film was talking about - front-line pilots. One of them was the famous Soviet ace, three times Hero of the Soviet Union, who shot down 59 Nazi aircraft in 156 air battles, Alexander Pokryshkin. The tape literally shocked him. When the lights were turned on in the hall, it was not hidden from those present that Pokryshkin was wiping away tears.

And then the prototype of Maestro Vitaly Popkov himself looked at the picture. Here is his story about this: “I was on duty in Kyiv, called Lena Bykov, went with him to the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, played a film. The minister persists: what kind of film is this, he says, people do not return from combat missions, they die, and they sing live songs. And he sums up: there was no such thing at the front and could not be. I ask the minister: was he at the front himself? The official's logic is amazing: "I haven't been," he replies, "but I know." And then I told the minister that I had flown on one of the two planes bought with the money of Jazz Utyosov and donated to our regiment. And that Leonid Osipovich and his musicians came to our airfield, and we played together and sang together. Convinced. It was probably not so much my arguments that affected him, but the general's epaulettes and two heroic stars ... "

Largely thanks to good reviews former front-line soldiers who managed to watch the film before its release on the wide screen, the USSR State Film Committee decided to encourage the creators of the picture. On February 6, 1974, an order was issued to pay them a monetary reward. It was a fair decision, given that the tape was filmed with great cost savings: out of the 381 thousand rubles allocated for its production, 325 thousand were spent. Among those encouraged were 39 people. When awarding, the stage director Leonid Bykov was especially singled out: he was paid 200 rubles of the prize and was awarded the title of “stage director of the 1st category” (for example: actors A. Smirnov, V. Talashko and S. Ivanov were paid 50 rubles each).

The leadership of the Dovzhenko Film Studio will find the amount of remuneration to the main creators of the film insufficient, and it will petition the USSR State Cinematography that the authors of the script (L. Bykov, E. Onoprienko and A. Satsky) raise the fee from 6 thousand rubles to the maximum - 8 thousand. However, this trick will not work: Goskino will consider that "the work of the team has been sufficiently convincingly encouraged and an increase in the fee does not seem appropriate." This is despite the fact that in a few months the film “Only Old Men Go to Battle” will collect many prizes at various film festivals and bring in hundreds of millions of rubles.

The film was released on the wide screen on August 12, 1974. And by the end of the year, he gathered 44 million 300 thousand viewers at his screenings (4th place), which was a big surprise: by that time, films about the Great Patriotic War had practically not collected such a “box office”.

Before Vitaly Ivanovich received the nickname "Maestro", his colleagues called him "Grasshopper". Popkov was a pre-war cadet, nicknamed "unlucky" in aviation. At this time, the People's Commissar of Defense ordered to send to the army those who graduated from the training of pilots not as officers, but as sergeants. They came to the place of service in ordinary soldier's overcoats, and the attitude of their colleagues towards the young was appropriate. When Popkov wanted to get on the plane, he was kicked out, saying "you are not a pilot, but an ordinary sergeant, so sit at the airfield."

The commander of the 5th air regiment, Vasily Zaitsev, watched Vitaly's first training flight, and the young pilot decided to show what he was capable of. Moreover, young radio operators arrived in the unit. Popkov swept meters above the ground and performed figures aerobatics, although it was required to rise into the sky, circle the airfield twice and land.

When the satisfied sergeant was on the ground, the enraged commander shouted that he would now be the eternal duty officer at the airfield and kept his word. When the guy was bored on duty, he caught grasshoppers. Other pilots noticed this and gave him the nickname "Grasshopper". Hearing the story from Vitaly Ivanovich, Leonid Bykov realized that such an image should not disappear and introduced the young and slightly cocky Lieutenant Aleksandrov into the script.

Popkov earned the respect of his colleagues in March 1942, when all the experienced pilots were on a combat mission. At this time, two German Junkers dive bombers and a pair of Messerschmitt fighters raided the airfield. In addition to sergeants and technicians, there was no one in the squadron, and then the Grasshopper decided to take the fight.

Having reached the plane under enemy fire, he jumped into the cockpit and, as he was, without a parachute, went to take off. Having just taken off, he made a turnaround maneuver and from an extremely uncomfortable position at the maximum distance fired a volley at the Junkers rushing towards him. No one expected a hit, but the enemy car was enveloped in flames and it collapsed to the ground. At this time, another plane took off from the airfield, into which jumped in one underwear, shaving and washing right there at the airfield, the regiment commander. Seeing such a thing, the rest of the enemies hurried to get out.

Vitaly Ivanovich described his landing as follows: “... the pilots, in order to tease me, lined up in two lines - they say, they greet the hero. Well, I played along with them: almost like the Grasshopper in the film, I walked with a dignified gait, thanked for the trust….” Commander Zaitsev was at first confused, and then, pretending to be upset and smiling, asked the Grasshopper why did he let the rest of the Fritz go? To which the Grasshopper blurted out, "It was you who scared their comrade commander with your underwear." Hearing the story, Bykov realized that it must be filmed.