The Irony of Fate, or Thanks for the Bath! (For the 50th Anniversary of the Film)

Once, friends and co-authors — playwright Emil Braginsky and director Eldar Ryazanov — heard a story about a man who, after a bath, went to see his friends, overindulged at the well-laid table, and fell asleep. The story omits why his dining companions got the idea to send their sleeping friend by train to Leningrad, but as a result, he arrived in the city on the Neva with only a bath broom in his hand luggage. This almost detective story inspired Braginsky and Ryazanov to create a cheerful and lyrical play about the love that ignited between doctor Zhenya Lukashin and teacher Nadya Shveleva. And to ensure that the incredibility of what was happening did not awaken Stanislavsky in the audience, the co-authors transferred the action of their story to New Year's Eve, into a magical atmosphere of waiting for a miracle. The play successfully ran in several theaters of the USSR and was later adapted into a film story, based on which Eldar Ryazanov shot the film “The Irony of Fate, or Thanks for the Bath!”, which soon gained the status of the country's main New Year comedy. Time has flown by quickly. That country is long gone, the co-author friends who gifted us so many wonderful films are no longer, but we still watch “The Irony of Fate” on New Year’s Eve and joyfully recognize the adventures of Zhenya, Nadya, and Hippolyte. In this book, you will find the film story “The Irony of Fate, or Thanks for the Bath!” accompanied by frames from the film, as well as Eldar Ryazanov's memories of how this story was born, how the film was made, and how it was received by the State Commission; there was also a little miracle here.