For the Matches

Eastern Finland, the village of Liperi. Anna-Liisa wants to make coffee and there are no matches. She sends her husband Antti to the neighbour to borrow some. On the way Antti runs into Vatanen. The conversation goes on, a drink is had, a matchmaking errand for a widow is taken up, and then the business stretches as far as the town. The matches are forgotten. While two wives at home wonder where their husbands are, the men move deeper into a completely different story, having to tell a bigger lie at every step. Risto Orko and Leonid Gaidai direct together; a hundred minutes, with Yevgeny Leonov as Antti and Georgy Vitsin and Finnish actors in the cast. It is a Soviet and Finnish co-production, adapted from Maiju Lassila's novel, which had already been filmed in 1938.