The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
A tipsy New Year's Eve bathhouse tradition sends the wrong man to Leningrad, where an identical apartment and a matching key land him in a stranger's bed.
Where to watch online
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Availability data by JustWatch
About the film
What it’s about
Four friends keep a New Year's Eve ritual of visiting a public bathhouse. Vodka and beer flow, and when one of them must fly to Leningrad, the wrong man boards the plane. Zhenya wakes at the Leningrad airport believing he is still in Moscow. He takes a taxi to his address, where the street name, building, and apartment number match his own. His key fits the door, and he falls asleep. Nadya returns home to find a stranger in her bed, and soon her fiancé appears.
What hooks you
Eldar Ryazanov directs Andrey Myagkov as Zhenya and Barbara Brylska as Nadya, with Yuriy Yakovlev as her fiancé. The film was voted best film by Soviet Screen magazine in 1977. Ryazanov himself appears in a cameo as a plane passenger. The production used real panel apartments in Moscow, and a memorial plaque now marks one of the locations.
Who it’s for
It is worth a look for anyone who enjoys romantic comedies with a gentle, bittersweet tone, and for those curious about Soviet-era life and New Year traditions. It will appeal to viewers who like character-driven humour and the irony of everyday coincidences.
- Country
- Soviet Union
- Year
- 1975
- Running time
- 3h 4min
- Age rating
- 0++
- World premiere
- Dec 31, 1975
Ratings
MOVIE․ONE · 465 votesCreative team
All 10-
01
Andrey Myagkov
Zhenya Lukashin
-
02
Barbara Brylska
Nadya Sheveleva
-
03
Yuriy Yakovlev
Ippolit Georgievich
-
04
Aleksandr Shirvindt
Pavel
-
05
Georgi Burkov
Misha
-
06
Liya Akhedzhakova
Tanya, Nadya's friend
-
07
Aleksandr Belyavskiy
Sasha
-
08
Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya
Zhenya's mother
-
09
Valentina Talyzina
Nadia's friend
Trivia
All facts 10
- В титрах в начале фильма допущена опечатка: в слове «исключительно» (во фразе «Совершенно нетипичная история, которая могла произойти только и искючительно в новогоднюю ночь») пропущена буква «л».
- Lukashin flies to Leningrad from Domodedovo Airport, although in Soviet times domestic flights on northern and western routes departed from Sheremetyevo-1.
- In Moscow, 3rd Stroiteley Street existed from 1958, but in 1963 it was renamed—it is now Marii Ulyanovoy Street, and house 25 on that street is a Khrushchyovka five-story building. In Leningrad, 3rd Stroiteley Street never existed, but from 1955 to 1962 there were two Stroiteley Streets at once: one in the industrial zone of the Krasnogvardeysky District, now called Boksitogorskaya Street, and the other in the Kirovsky District, now called Marinesko Street.
- Zhenya throws Ippolit's photograph out the window, and later Nadya picks up from the snow not a photograph of Yuri Yakovlev but one of Oleg Basilashvili, who had earlier been cast as Ippolit and filmed several scenes but had to withdraw from filming because of his father's death. They did not manage to reshoot this shot in time because spring arrived and the snow melted.
- «What a disgusting thing this aspic fish of yours is» and «Oh, it's gone warm» are phrases that were not in the film's script. They were Yuri Yakovlev's improvisation.
- Eldar Ryazanov played one of his characteristic cameo roles in the film — a passenger on the plane onto whom the sleeping Lukashin keeps collapsing. According to Ryazanov himself, he was very upset when, while watching the filmed episode, he discovered that the shots clearly showed a bald patch showing through his still not-so-sparse hair.
Franchise
4-
1975
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
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Я люблю Новый год Remake
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Ирония судьбы в Голливуде Remake
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2007
The Irony of Fate: Continuation
Sequel
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The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (1975)
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
1975
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
1975
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
1975