 In 1956 he graduated from VGIK where he studied film directing under Grigory Alexandrov and Mikhail Chiaureli; he worked briefly in television and made around three dozen documentaries.In 1958 he started working at Mosfilm and directed his first feature comedy "The Unamenables," which turned into one of the 1959 box office leaders (10th place with 31.8 million viewers) and gained the main prize at the 1960 All-Union Film Festival.He cast the leading actress Nadezhda Rumyantseva in his next comedy "The Girls" which became an even bigger success