historical drama A Weary Road). His 1958 comedy The Dead Affair was described by Minister of Culture Nikolai Mikhailov as "a lampooning of Soviet Reality" and was cut to 47 minutes by censors as a result, and released as A Groom from the Other World. He subsequently avoided overtly political themes. His first success came six years after graduation, with a segment of the short film collection Absolutely Seriously (1961), which instantly became highly popular. In this film, Gaidai first introduced a comic trio of crooks – Georgy Vitsin, Yuri Nikulin, and Yevgeny Morgunov (aka 'ViNiMor', playing the characters Coward, Fool, and Pro), who later appeared in several of his other films. After his characters and directing style won the public's love, his name gained massive selling power in USSR's cinemas. Genre brilliance Between 1961 and 1975, Gaidai directed a number of top-selling films, each one a huge financial success and becoming wildly popular in the Soviet Union. During these years, he filmed new adventures of the mischievous trio in Bootleggers (1961), a film adaptation of O. Henry's short stories, Strictly Business (1962), Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures (1965), and Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1966). Following his break with Morgunov, Gaidai disbanded the trio, while casting Nikulin in what was to become the most popular Soviet comedy ever made, The Diamond Arm (1968). In the 1970s, Gaidai worked primarily with the comedians from his own studio group, which included Vitsin, Kuravlyov, Pugovkin, Kramarov, Seleznyova, Krachkovskaya, and his wife Nina Grebeshkova. All this cast was featured in his film adaptation of Mikhail Zoshchenko's short stories, It Can't Be! (1975). He also filmed a play by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (1973), Ilf and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs (1971), Nikolai Gogol's Incognito from St. Petersburg (1977), and Borrowing Matchsticks (1980), a story by the Finnish author Maiju Lassila. Commercial success Gaidai's top-grossing film The Diamond Arm sold 76.7 million tickets in the Soviet Union alone, becoming the third highest-grossing Soviet film. At $8 per ticket (regular fare in an American movie theatre in 2005), it would have generated revenue comparable to the US box office champion Titanic. In a 1995 survey by RTR, it was voted the best comedy ever made. It was followed closely by Gaidai's other comedy films — Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (fourth place with 76.5 million viewers), Operation Y and Other Shurik's Adventures (seventh place with