Incorrigible Liar 1973

Alexei Ivanovich Tyutyurin is a warm-hearted, gentle man who has spent twenty years working as a hairdresser in a bustling salon. When a chance to be promoted to the salon’s manager arises, he faces a problem: in the eyes of his colleagues, he is late and an incorrigible liar. According to his boss, Vasily Vasilievich Mymrikov, Tyutyurin has two drawbacks:

First, he lies, and secondly, he does not know how to lie.

This blunt assessment helps explain why the boss initially refuses to sign his recommendation letter. Yet the truth about Tyutyurin is more nuanced than it appears: he does not intend to deceive anyone; he simply keeps stumbling into a string of unusual, almost fateful, situations on his way to work. He saves a boy by helping him recover a ball from the roadway, only to be drenched by an auto-dispenser and forced to hurry home to change clothes. He then returns a lost gold cigarette case to a foreign prince, who, in gratitude, arranges a dinner in his honor. And in another quirky twist, Tyutyurin ends up under a car, with Edita Piekha sitting behind the wheel.

After yet another delay, Tyutyurin actually begins to craft a fable. He, with the help of his boss, tells a “believable” story about a party with beauties and dances. The chief seems satisfied with this new surface of “corrected behavior” and contemplates signing the character reference letter. But remorse soon gnaws at Tyutyurin, and he confesses the real story—the girl, the ball, and the fountain. Vasily Vasilyevich immediately wonders if Tyutyurin is incorrigible and contemplates drastic measures. At a pivotal moment, the prince’s translator arrives at the beauty salon with a gift for Tyutyurin, and a little later—Edita Piekha arrives with Alexei’s wife, and all misunderstandings are resolved.