The Diamond Arm

The Diamond Arm (1969) is a Soviet comedy classic you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Leonid Gaidai and starring Yuri Nikulin, Andrei Mironov, and Anatoly Papanov. Mild-mannered clerk Semyon Gorbunkov goes on a foreign cruise and slips on a banana peel in a southern port city — and wakes up with a plaster cast full of smuggled diamonds meant for someone else entirely.

The diamonds were supposed to reach Gena Kozodoev, a slick con man played by Mironov with the charm of a man who has never done an honest day's work and intends to keep it that way. Now Kozodoev and his boss, played by Papanov, have to retrieve the goods before the bewildered Gorbunkov hands everything over to the Soviet authorities. Nikulin plays his character with complete sincerity — no winking at the camera — and that straight-faced commitment is what turns each set piece into pure comic gold. Svetlana Svetlichnaya's femme fatale is one of Soviet cinema's most iconic supporting turns.

Gaidai shot the whole thing on a modest budget, filling it with original songs and slapstick that still land cleanly today. The film topped Soviet box office charts for 1969 and has never really left Russian cultural vocabulary. Stream The Diamond Arm (1969) in full online on iFILM.