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alain delon was huge in soviet union and by extension in various zones of soviet influence, because france was soviet friendly state and their cinematography was pretty good. back before the anglo-american establishment gained full cultural dominance, the world was divided not just along the comic lines of "axis", there was more subtlety to it. there was a whole cultural space that existed separately from english speaking world, and it wasn't restricted to specific countries. it was more like european/soviet/communist-regime sphere, where europeans were socialist sympathetic, soviets were open to their influence and various communist regime countries provided exciting, ethnic backdrop and variety. it is to this day a kind of secret language (now mostly dead) that i share with random old men from kenya: they too have watched alain delon movies, can sing along to joe dassin, know who dalida is, etc.

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Didn't Vladimir Vysotsky have a french girlfriend?

While watching a retro-Soviet russian program, I was amused to see a videotape on a desk clearly labeled «Эммануэль» — "Emmanuelle".

(I'm pretty sure Americans could watch that even despite subtitles?)

EDIT: come to think of it, both france and russia (as well as bits of africa?) used SECAM, which probably helped cultural exchange a great deal. Back in the day, it was easier for us to get not-broadcast-in-the-US anime than not-broadcast-in-the-US BBC programs, despite the language barrier, because the former were NTSC but the latter PAL.

Sting has a great story about watching Soviet children's programming while at uni (probably explaining his lines "I don't subscribe to this point of view / It'd be such an ignorant thing to do / If the Russians love their children too"), but I kind of wondered if his friend who built the SECAM decoder had, at least originally, been more interested in picking up cross-channel programming than cross-iron-curtain?

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vysotsky's last wife was french-born, though she was ethnically at least part russian, her father fled during the soviet revolution. but you could look at it as a long history of a weird kind of friendship between the two countries: during the french terror french nobility fled to russia, establishing and strengthening burgeoning francophone tendencies of russian aristocracy. then during communist terror in russia, russian nobility fled to france, establishing the fifth column there, but also perhaps ensuring and cultivating soviet-french relationship through 20th century.

i'm pretty sure everyone had a copy of emmanuelle on vhs at some point, but very much within the cultural sphere i was talking about in op. like speaking of emmanuelle, there was a handful of porn movies that the entirety of europe, france and late perestroyka su watched, that americans never heard of.

the secam bit might be relevant, but i distinctly remember pal/secam switch on both the tape player and the tv. i think maybe the technical followed social, La tulipe noire was played in soviet cinema in the 60s and it was a huge huge success.