The Weiner brothers said that the idea of creating a film script for their novel was suggested by Vladimir Vysotsky.
For his sake, the writers even went to radically change the hero's appearance: in the novel, Gleb Zhaglov was a handsome 25-year-old Komsomol member, tall and broad-shouldered. Vladimir Vysotsky, who played him in the film, is sixteen years older than his prototype. The director of the film Stanislav Goborukhin says:
"I was able to cast Volodya in the role of Gleb Zhaglov without a screen test, because it was clear to me, as well as to the entire film crew, that only he should play this role. But this happened at a time when Vysotsky never appeared on television, and here he was such a disgusting character, and even in a five-part television movie, the whole country could see in other roles of several other actors, so obviously I could not see other actors. With Vysotsky and when I showed the samples to the management, I also showed these samples, which were, of course, much worse than Vysotsky's samples.
If the director Stanislav Goborukhin had not protected the artistic council of Vladimir Vysotsky, the film would have been different. The actor put his whole soul into the role of Gleb Zhaglov. Vysotsky's schedule during filming was crazy: he flew by plane between two cities - Moscow and Odessa, helped other actors and even replaced the director Goborukhin on the set. Part of the film was shot in Odessa, and Vysotsky had to fly to Moscow for a performance and return two or three times a day. Vysotsky did not leave the theater. The policemen drove him down the Volga with a siren, and on the way the make-up artist turned Zhaglov into a Hamlet. And after the performance, sometimes in a mail plane, next to a pile of newspapers, the artist flew to Odessa for the morning photo shoot.
These days he is surprisingly collected, as if he knew this was one of his last film roles.