Unexpected ending: do you know that Shurik and Nina’s story from “Prisoner of the Caucasus” has a sequel?

Once the film was edited accepted “with a squeak”: the film was criticized for music that had no “signs of the genre”, a “vulgar” song about the sultan, excessive “grimaces” of the trinity – Coward, Dunce and Experienced, “unexpected and unnecessary accents” in the image of Comrade Saakhov – the acceptance committee even demanded to remove the images in which the audience first saw legs in boots, and then panties , then a military tunic. All this, according to the censors, caused “useless” associations with Stalin.

Nevertheless, the film was not only accepted, but, to everyone’s surprise, it received the highest category. As it turned out later, last weekend, Leonid Brezhnev asked to show him “something new”, and the General Secretary was brought to the viewing room “Prisoner of the Caucasus”. Comedy pleased the head of state – this saved Shurik’s new adventures.

The film’s finale can be called open – at first it seems that Nina and Shurik will part at the bus stop. But they leave together, even taking a donkey with them. According to the memoirs of actor Vladimir Etush, who played Comrade Saakhov, after the successful rental of the picture, Gaidai decided to film the sequel to The Prisoner of the Caucasus – according to the screenwriters, Nina and her captor, after her early release, were to face each other again, joining the fight for the position of head of the district committee.

The script for the second part had already been approved, but it did not come to fruition due to a quarrel between Gaidai and Yevgeny Morgunov – at that time the actor “played” and constantly ignored requests and director’s requirements. Then Leonid ordered the scriptwriters to strike Experienced from the second part, and Morgunov, having learned about this, wrote a complaint in which he called anti-Soviet propaganda “Caucasian Prisoner – 2”. The officials moved to Mosfilm, and they decided not to make a film.

However, Shurik and Nina appeared in a completely different film – the comedy “We did not expect, we did not guess!” 1982. According to the plot, in an apartment where an ordinary family lives, a donkey suddenly appears. Neither the police, nor the vets, nor the local alcoholic hooligan can hunt him, and only the filmmakers manage to take the animal away – they need the donkey to film.

At the end of the film, the neighbors of the main characters, played by Alexander Demyanenko and Natalya Varley, are introduced. They depict a middle-aged husband and wife with two children. The couple argue violently: the man accuses the “soul mate” of working hard and even being a Newton Prize winner, but still has to do all the household chores until she “disappears somewhere.” leaves every evening, and returns home as if to a hotel”.

In his heart, the professor shouts that he is going to ask for a divorce, but an unhappy donkey appears on the threshold of the apartment. Seeing him, the heroes start laughing – it immediately becomes clear that the animal means something to them. The reference to the “caucasian prisoner” is obvious, so apparently Shurik and Nina nevertheless got married, had children and, it seems, were able to cope with the marriage crisis thanks to the same donkey that had once brought together.