Writer: Vasili Livanov
Producer: Inessa Kovalevskaya
Cast: Oleg Anofriyev, Anatoli Gorokhov, Elmira Zherzdeva
Year of release: 1969
Country: USSR
Reviewed from: Russian VHS(!)
One of the advantages of having an Estonian sister-in-law is the chance to occasionally watch movies which I would be otherwise unlikely to view, and one such is this perennially popular Russian cartoon.
The story of 'The Bremen Town Musicians' comes from the tales of the Brothers Grimm (it was first published in English in 1884). Although this particular tales enjoys widespread popularity in Europe it is largely unknown in the UK. All that the cartoon keeps from the story is the basic set-up - a donkey, a dog, a cat and a cockerel who together form a musical troupe - plus the idea of a bunch of dim bandits.
The animals (who don't have names, as far as I can tell) are travelling along with their human friend, identified as 'the Troubadour', in a cart pulled by the donkey. They arrive at a city (Bremen?) where they perform for the populace and the Troubadour falls in love with the King's daughter. But he is only a lowly strolling player and the King, who for some reason spends a lot of his time eating hard-boiled eggs, prohibits the marriage. The Troubadour and his four musical animal friends leave the city somewhat dejected.

The five friends then remove their masks, reappear and 'rescue' the king who is of course so grateful that he immediately sanctions a Troubadour-daughter wedding. After much joyful celebration, the animals depart the city, sad that they have lost their human friend - but the Troubadout and his new bride run after them, leap aboard the cart and off they all go.
It says something for the film that I was able to follow what was happening, despite not speaking a word of Russian. There isn't a spoken word in the cartoon, with everything sung to tunes that sound like a mix of 1960s pop and traditional East European folk music. Although apparently set in some medieval milieu, the Troubadour wears flares, the King's daughter wears a mini-dress and the donkey wears a baseball cap! The animation is simplistic with extensive use of repeated movement but there is an undeniable charm to the production.
All the music is credited to Gennadi Gladkov with lyrics by Yuri Entin (who also wrote a 1979 TV version of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). The actual credited scriptwriter is Vasili Livanov who is also an actor and starred as Sherlock Holmes in a series of Russian TV-movies in the early 1980s. Oleg Anofriyev, who provides most of the voices, was most recently seen in the 1996 US comedy Back in the USSR which was filmed in Russia with an eclectic cast that included Brian Blessed, Andrew (Wishmaster) Divoff and Roman Polanski!
Some sources list Bremenskie Muzikanty as a feature but in fact it runs only about 20-25 minutes. The Inaccurate Movie Database cites a running time of 64 minutes but that is probably the complete length of this VHS, which also includes the 1973 sequel Po Sledam Bremenskih Muzykantov and another tales from the Brothers Grimm, 'Puss in Boots', as Kot v Sapogah.

MJS rating: B
Review originally posted 2nd July 2005
The Black - haired woman is definitely the Leader of the Gang- Atamansha.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Trio of robbers represents satirical image of another and very popular Trio (performed by actors Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov)- which usually appeared in Comedies made by Gayadai : in " Кавказская пленница, или Новые приключения Шурика" (1967) or
"Kavkazskaya plennitsa, ili Novye priklyucheniya Shurika "
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