Another Man's Wife and a Husband Under the Bed (film)


Another Man's Wife and a Husband Under the Bed is a 1984 Soviet TV comedy film directed by Vitaly Melnikov. It is based on the 1848 story by Fyodor Dostoevsky of the same name.

Plot

The film is a vaudevillian story about how solid, venerable, jealous husband in the search for a frivolous wife falls in someone else's apartment and finds himself under the bed of an unfamiliar woman, together with an unknown man, who, too, was there by accident.

Cast

Crew

Filming

According to Vitaly Melnikov, everyone had fun making the movie. The only difficulty was getting from under the antique bed which could've collapsed anytime, so Stanislav Sadalsky had to stay down there. He was then joined by Oleg Tabakov, and during pauses both of them simply fell asleep. Yuri Bogatyryov had only one free day, so he invented his costume and changed closes on the way from Moscow to Leningrad, thus upon arrival everyone witnessed a 19th-century nobleman casually walking out of a Soviet train.

Critics

Writer Yevgeni Popov called the original story "an amusingly talented, funny, light, playful thing" written by a "then-lad Dostoevsky", and noted that a significant part of future absurdists such as Daniil Kharms or Nikolay Oleynikov owed him. Popov also recommended to watch the movie, highlighting the acting and Oleg Yefremov's work in particular. "Usually such a severe man flexing his jaw muscles, here he appears as an elderly relaxed gentleman".