The Irony Of Fate (original title: Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром! in transcription: Ironiya Sudby ili S Lyogkim Parom) is a Soviet comedy-drama directed by Eldar Ryazanov as a made-for-TV movie. The screenplay was written by Emil Braginsky and Ryazanov, loosely based on Ryazanov's 1971 play 'Once on New Year's Eve' (Russian: Однажды в новогоднюю ночь). The movie was filmed in 1975 at Mosfilm. Simultaneously a screwball comedy and a love story tinged with sadness, the film is traditionally broadcast in Russia and some other former Soviet republics every New Year's Eve. It is as fondly viewed every year as the American film "It's a Wonderful Life" is during the Christmas holidays.

This modestly budgeted, made-for-TV romantic comedy became one of the most popular films in the former Soviet Union and a staple of TV broadcasts on New Year's Eve. It's based on the premise that modern apartment complexes look so much alike that one cannot distinguish one city from another. On New Year's Eve, Muscovite Yevgeny Lukashin finally dares to make a marriage proposal to Galya. They plan to celebrate the New Year together quietly, but Lukashin's friends convince him that first he should attend their annual meeting at a bathhouse.

The mens' meeting quickly turns into an improvisational bachelor party for Yevgeny. Having consumed large amounts of alcohol, they cannot remember which one of them was supposed to fly to Leningrad to meet his wife. So they put the sleepy Lukashin on a plane. Upon his arrival in the Leningrad airport, Yevgeny gives the taxi driver his Moscow street address and the cab takes him to an apartment complex located on a street with the same name. The building looks very much like his own, so Lukashin, still not quite sober, does not realize that he is in another city. He enters someone else's apartment because his key fits the door lock and he quickly falls asleep on a couch.

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Director Eldar Ryazanov
Writers: Emil Braginsky and Eldar Ryazanov

Cast
* Andrey Myagkov as Zhenya
* Barbara Brylska as Nadya
* Yuri Yakovlev as Ippolit
* Aleksandr Shirvindt as Pavel, Zhenya's friend
* Georgy Burkov as Misha, Zhenya's friend
* Liya Akhedzhakova as Tanya, Nadya's friend
* Aleksandr Belyavsky as Sasha, Zhenya's friend
* Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya as Zhenya's mother
* Olga Naumenko as Galya
* Gotlib Roninson as Zhenya's neighbour at the airport
* Eldar Ryazanov as Zhenya's neighbour in the plane
* Lyubov Sokolova as Nadya's mother
* Valentina Talyzina as Valya, Nadya's friend; Nadya's voice

The score to the film was composed by Mikael Tariverdiyev, and includes both orchestral background music and songs in the style of the "author's song" movement, sung by several of the characters. The strikingly melancholy lyrics of the songs were written by some of Russia's greatest twentieth-century poets: Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva, Bella Akhmadulina, as well as the songwriter and poet Bulat Okudzhava. The singing voices of the characters were dubbed by the (now well-known) vocalists Sergey Nikitin and Alla Pugacheva.

© MOSFILM, 1975.
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From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_of...
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073179/
and "The New York Times": http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/10161...
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English subtitles from original DVD.

СССР, Мосфильм, 1975, 184 мин. Классика, Комедия. Лирическая комедия о том, как четверо друзей под Новый год, по традиции, отправились в баню... А получился один из лучших фильмов отечественного кино за всю его историю. Эльдару Рязанову удалось в этой картине все - от мягкой новогодней интонации до великолепного актерского ансамбля. Награды: Лучший фильм 1976 года по опросу журнала "Советский Экран". Андрей Мягков признан лучшим актером года.