Yuri Tolubeyev Movies

This adaptation of Lev Slavin's play was notable for its humorous treatment of the Russian Civil War and foreign governments' involvement in it. The film was shot in 1968 but not completed until 1987 due to the intervention (no pun intended) of the authorities. It was intended to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the October revolution and at the same time be an entertaining film. One reviewer (for Variety) likens the resulting film to what might have happened had directors Jean-Luc Godard and Federico Fellini teamed up with the Red Army in 1968 to put on a cabaret show. Farce is liberally mixed with slapstick. This is far from the kind of stodgy film that was usually produced for official celebrations. After the government stopped the production, the cast sent a letter to Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin defending the film and its director, quoting from Lenin that "the Revolution is a jolly thing, and revolutionary art can't be routine, dull, cliched." The letter didn't help. The show opens with a chorus of very fat girls in tight-fitting band uniforms singing while an army unit goes on maneuvers and a general does bookkeeping on an abacus. In the story, Brodsky, (who is also sometimes called Voronov), is a communist agitator in Odessa, which has not yet fallen to the Bolshevik regime. The local police and military are trying to hunt down the communists. Zhena is a wealthy woman who hopes to escape before the Bolsheviks take over, but she falls in love with a good-looking lad named Sasha, who is involved with the communists. When Sasha works out a deal with the local "bourgeois capitalists" (all made up like clowns) to cover his gambling debts, he becomes an official "Enemy of the Working Class." Meanwhile, Brodsky has landed in the capitalist's prison and is declared a hero of the revolution when he dies there. The entire story is told in Odessa slang, liberally mixed with heavy swearing and underworld lingo. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In America, they would have called him "Robbie," since Robert is a friendly robot. Built in the image of his inventor, Robert finds himself cast adrift into human society. He tries to adapt, but soon discovers that the world isn't as "perfect" and logical as he is. A neat premise, nicely done by an likeable Russian cast. They Call Me Robert was originally released in the Soviet Union as Yego Zvali Robert. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations. Rarely seen in the US, this Hamlet (or Gamlet, as it was known in Russia) is not always successful, but is certainly more innovative -- and lively -- than Olivier's wildly overpraised 1948 version. Director Grigori Kozintsev would follow Hamlet with an equally radical adaptation of King Lear in 1970. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Purge all thoughts of Danny Kaye from your mind when viewing the 1954 Russian film The Inspector General. While Kaye's version of this selfsame Gogol play is a lighthearted musical, the 1954 version is faithful to the cynical, mean-spirited original. A corrupt town is thrown in an uproar upon learning that the Inspector General from the capital is due for a visit. It is well known that the Inspector has imposed severe punishments upon those who don't come up to his lofty standards, thus the town's leading citizens conspire to kiss up to the visiting dignitary. Enter a crude, doltish drifter who, through a series of highly improbable plot twists, is mistaken for the Inspector General. The village elders bend over backward to treat the buffoon like royalty, even unto offering him bribes in the form of wine, women, and song. Since this 1954 Inspector General is a filmed record of the Moscow Art Theater's presentation of the Gogol classic, were are treated to the legendary "freeze frame" curtain scene. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The First Front was part one of Russian filmmaker Vladimir Petrov's two-part historical epic The Battle of Stalingrad. The hero of the piece is, of course, Josef Stalin (Alexei Dieky), who courageously (in this film at least) urges his countrymen to stand their ground as the Nazis lay siege to Stalingrad in 1941. One suspects that Petrov's positive portrayal of Stalin as a cunning, cool-headed military strategist would cause him no end of trouble during Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. Other historical personages appearing in The First Front are generals Vasilievsky, Voronov, Rokossovsky, Yeremenko and Chukov--not to mention Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler, all depicted according to the current Soviet party line. The film's vibrant musical score was composed by no less than Aram Khatchaturian. First Front was followed in 1950 by the second part of Petrov's Stalingrad saga, The Victors and the Vanquished. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Secret Brigade is one of several Russian films dealing with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Vladimir Druzhnikov stars as Zaslonov, a humble railroad employee who becomes a hero of the Soviet Underground. Gaining the confidence of a few German officers, Zaslonov is able to lay the groundwork for a major sabotage operation, aimed at crippling Nazi train shipments. In the tradition of Hollywood oversimplification, the Nazis are depicted as little better than morons, totally oblivious to the saboteurs and their covert activities. Secret Brigade was made available to U.S. distributors in early 1951, though the market for pro-Soviet films was practically nil in that McCarthy-dominated year. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi