Gentlemen of Fortune

A mild-mannered kindergarten teacher, Evgeniy Troshkin, is thrust into a wildly unexpected mission when the police discover he is the uncanny double of a notorious thief who has stolen Alexander the Great’s ancient helmet. Persuaded to go undercover, Troshkin must infiltrate the criminal’s gang and uncover the artifact’s hiding place, relying on nothing but his good nature, improvised toughness, and teacher’s intuition. As he navigates the absurd world of petty crooks, he soon realizes that these so-called “gentlemen of fortune” aren’t so different from his mischievous pupils — they, too, crave attention, guidance, and a bit of human warmth.

The film became a massive hit in the Soviet Union, drawing over 65 million admissions in 1972 and becoming the top-performing film of the year.

Its director, Aleksandr Sery, was actually a trained engineer before switching to film; his background helped him bring a structured, almost mechanical discipline to the film’s comedic setups.

The film features actor Yevgeny Leonov in an unusual dual role: he plays both the kindly kindergarten teacher Troshkin and the hardened criminal boss “Docent” — a performance which shows his exceptional range as a comedic and dramatic actor.

Much of the criminal-slang used in the movie (fenya) was either borrowed or invented so convincingly that many of its expressions entered everyday Russian speech. For example, the word “редиска” (“radish”) meaning “bad person” became a humorous catchphrase.

The filming locations spanned both Moscow and far-away Central Asia (Uzbek SSR) — scenes of the prison colony and the escape were shot near Samarkand, giving the film a somewhat exotic and adventurous backdrop not typical for Soviet comedies of the time.

The script was co-written by celebrated filmmaker Georgiy Daneliya (better known as a director) and writer Viktoriya Tokareva — their collaboration resulted in a comedic structure combining slapstick, character-drama and satire.