L'homme de boulevard des Capucines

That's a beautiful comedy with a number of Russian film stars. The plot is rather unusual for a comedy western. One of the first cinematographers(his name is Mr.First performed by Andrey Mironov) arrives in a sleepy Wild West town and brings a primitive film projector with a number of bobbins of first Chaplin-like films. Every night he shows films in the local saloon and his arrival has a dramatical effect on the local cowboys(probably "cowboys" will seem rather strange for real Americans, but don't forget the film is made in Russia and they also have some stereotypes about the Wild West). After his arrival they stop fighting with each other,stop speaking bad words, start behaving very politely("like real gentlemen"), and in the evenings come to the saloon to have a drink of ... milk, instead of whiskey!!! After solving many problems and passing through a wall of misunderstanding Mr.First makes a lot of friends and eventually the local beauty Diana falls in love with him. The film has a lot of funny episodes and twists e.g. the local Comanches start the war with the cowboys only to have a possibility to go to the movie saloon as well.It's really worth watching the film wherever you live.

A great and funny Soviet musical parody of Hollywood Westerns and also a tribute to the history of cinema. By portraying in an amusing way most of the genre clichés (saloon brawl, whisky, piano playing, can can dance, a stagecoach robbery, an eyepatch, shot men dropping from above...). That typical Old West caothic town is changed when a foreign man screens movies (indeed famous real and historic early films from XIX century). Besides being a cute homage to the seventh art, there is also implicitly a mockery on the United States values and on what was being produced in Hollywood on the 80's. It is probably among the 10 best movies made in Soviet Union. Alla Surikova, a woman inside the almost purely male universe of top Mosfilm directors, has a great work here, as there are many difficult action scenes wonderfully made.

I like the super-task of the "Сinema man" (The man from Cappuchino boulevard), but I never can understand what made them in 1987 (Chrushev is dead) want to clash the cinema and the Church. This seems to make the movie very very lame. Just answer me, when you hit a God-forsaken American town, how often do you meet an evil, carnal Pastor ? Everyone, absolutely everyone in this town, including the bar owner, the Indian Chief, and the local hit-man Black Joe are good people, at least they have good soul strings. Only Church Pastor stands out as pitch black, as absolute evil. You know, I don't like such plain con gaming. Even the world of cinema men has good and bad representatives like Mr.First who features good manners, good and high feelings, gentleness, kindness, and everything good you know about the cinema, and Mr.Second who disseminates violence, low style, fights, perhaps toilet humor, horrors, nudity and sex, and everything bad you know about the cinema. But when it comes to Church you have only one pitch black Jewish evil carnal Pastor who's dream is to rape a lady singing in the bar. Well, even if you tell me that evil, carnal, raping Pastors are as frequent in the USA as Coca-Cola dispensers, this still can not be a reason to bang a traveling cinema man against the Church. Even local hit-man Black Joe turns better than Pastor. What is this ? What thoughts shall this provoke ? The only clue thrown in is Mr. First's song "without rage and mourning for the benefit of the planet Earth as we dreamed since long but still can not live up to our dream". Well, perhaps's that's it. A spoof of the American dream, a mock of the shining city on the hill ? And the evil lustful Pastor is an American Pastor namely and exclusively? Kh-m, you should have warned me, that this gonna be so, eh, particular. The movie was shot in 1987 when we in Russia were going full speed for universal human values, everything was going to be for us so universal, and an evil Pastor in the US could mean only an equally evil Priest on the other side of the pond. Well, were we really supposed to take seriously that cinema is going to save the world ? And all this garnished with carefully choreographed fist fights in the saloon, fighting Indians, and "Lemonade Joe" style story of how a rotten dangerous hole of American town turned into a descent place thanks to the traveling projector ? Strange movie though, with a message buried more deeper than the eventual plot, otherwise with no message at all. Well, as strange and mesmerizing as Irina Fateeva and Spartak Michulin as Indian Chief couple.

Despite the film criticism, the idolatry of violent westerns, bloodthirsty, decimating Indians, misogynists, pigs and disgusting, produced by a woman in the Soviet cinema, the film is not very captivating, well produced, great social context, but it lacked something that I could cling, feel empathy, and the protagonist didn't contribute either... Prestigious and Regular...

This is one of those good old soviet comedies. The humor in these films is pretty innocent but still very funny. This film contains many Russian stars of that time. The plot is quite original. It's about a town in Wild West who's people are only drinking and fighting every single day and about an intelligent man who arrive to the town to introduce towns people with Cinematography. Soon people of town get fascinated by cinema, they stop drinking and fighting and become more polite to each other. The movie is really funny and interesting. Though this is not a action film, i've noticed some well choreographed fighting scenes. This film is really worth your time.