Naum Kleiman.: When Eisenstein and his crew returned to the USSR, they were officially told it was time to make some comedies. Alexandrov thus began preparing his “jazz comedy” Vesëlye Rebjata (“The World is Laughing”), and Eisenstein began working on his M.M.M. project, which he later interrupted. At that time, the two had not as yet had their falling out, so they helped one another. Alexandrov searched for the actors for Eisenstein’s film, and in exchange Eisenstein helped Alexandrov edit Vesëlye Rebjata: indeed, it was Eisenstein who invented those strange musical instruments and made that episode. Eisenstein also had a sort of “paternal complex” that led him to behave like a “good father” to all his “children”, or the actors and assistants whom he helped to become directors.

Natalia Noussinova: What seems outrageous to me is that Alexandrov never revealed the fact that he didn’t make the episode. According to his biographer Mark Kuchnirov (who ignores the fact, so it has truly never been told), Alexandrov was often rebuked by critics for doing the scene in too American a style. It was considered to be an imitation of The Battling Oriols by Ted Wild and Fred Guiol (1924). Stalin, who loved to watch how the heads cracked in the film, baled him out in the end. But Alexandrov probably preferred the ideological troubles of being a Western-oriented, cosmopolitan filmmaker, to refusing the honors given freely to him by Eisenstein.