The censorship couldn’t miss this.
The film “White Sun of the Desert” became a classic of Soviet cinema. Few realize that the original plan for the film was completely different. Some scenes had to be deleted, while others were not even filmed. The censors were not ready for such explicit episodes.
The actresses who played the roles of Abdullah’s concubines categorically refused to play without clothes. According to the director’s idea, the villain was supposed to set fire to the tank in which the women were hiding. They would take off their clothes to escape the fire.
But the concubines did not want to appear naked in front of the men on the site.
Explicit scenes still had to be cut from the final version of the film. The episode where Katerina Matveevna crossed the stream with her skirts raised high was removed. The amount of blood in the frame was reduced to a minimum. And the scenes where Vereshchagin drank alcohol were considered unworthy of such a hero.
