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The ancient port of Odessa is the setting for this zany comedy about a woman's love for a mechanic in the merchant navy who stands her up on the day they are to register their intended marriage with the city. The jilted woman, Margerita (Ludmilla Gurchenko) is a photo-lab worker who had been ready to take a chance on a second marriage until her fateful rejection. She is so faithful to her fickle lover that she waits all day at the registrar's doorway, hoping he will show up. At the end of the day, resigned to her fate, she goes into town where her interactions with those she meets have good effects. When she runs into an old boyfriend, she does not encourage any renewed liaison since she still loves the mechanic. Towards the end of her story, the mechanic (Sergei Shakurov) unexpectedly comes back into the picture and suddenly, life may not be quite as desolate as she had first imagined. Both Ludmilla Gurchenko and Sergei Shakurov (a former athlete) are two of the most popular actors in Russia, and their presence, as well as the up-beat tenor of the story helped make this film quite popular on its release (18.4 million viewers).