The supporting cast and locations are good, the music delightful, but I was disappointed by Mironov and Papanov. Mironov is surprisingly wooden and humorless, without the sparkle that characterizes Ostap Bender. The film suffers for it. Papanov takes his cue from Mironov's performance, plodding through the film without contributing much. They were capable of far better things. Lenoid Gaidai's version is not perfect, but on the whole, it conveys the feel of the book better. On the plus side, this version retained many of the minor characters dropped from the earlier film, but if you haven't read the book, they won't be missed one way or another.
