Forest Travellers
About Forest Travellers
A mother squirrel with a sore leg has three kits, two of them named Ryzhik and Belonosy. While she is out for breakfast, Belonosy practices jumping, wanders into the deep wood, and hears a jay describe another forest full of cones, mushrooms, and berries. Mice tell her a marten has come into their wood. Belonosy is missing. She cannot call for him without drawing the marten, so she lures the hunter away from the nest by letting it take her for the kit. The next day, with the cone crop failed, she says they must move. Belonosy talks her into letting him scout the other forest, and he sets off again.
Cast & crew
More about Forest Travellers
Mstislav Pashchenko directed the 1951 Soyuzmultfilm short. Vera Chaplina and Georgy Skrebitsky wrote it. Mikhail Druyan photographed it. Karen Khachaturian wrote the music. Yevgeny Migunov was the production designer and Lydia Kyaksht the editor. The Russian title is Lesnye puteshestvenniki.
Themes
Making
Pashchenko's unit at Soyuzmultfilm used Migunov's designs and Khachaturian's score for a 20-minute animal story told as a family move.
Look
Mikhail Druyan photographed the drawn forest, including the kit's jump away from the hollow and the marten chase.
Music
Karen Khachaturian composed the score.
Preservation
A 20-minute print survives.
Notes
- Voices include Yuliya Yulskaya, Vladimir Ratomsky, Yuri Khrzhanovsky, Aleksandra Panova, Viktoriya Ivanova, and Margarita Doktorova.
- The mother squirrel's leg is already hurt when the story starts.
- She will not shout for Belonosy because the marten would hear.
- The move is forced by a failed crop of cones, not by the marten alone.
Scenes
- Belonosy jumps too far and meets a jay who talks up the next forest.
- The mother lets the marten chase her so it will not find the hollow.
- She tells the kits the cones have failed and they have to leave.
