Fox the Builder
About Fox the Builder
A fox raids the hens at dawn, then gets herself hired when the rooster decides to build a fortified yard. She finishes the walls and leaves a gap. At the housewarming, while a bear, a goat, a donkey, and a monkey play, she grabs a hen and runs. The bear's chase makes her drop the hen, but she comes back and carries off the rooster.
Cast & crew
More about Fox the Builder
Aleksandr Ivanov directed Emmanuil Dvinsky's script, drawn from a fable by Ivan Krylov. It was made in 1936 at Soyuzdetmultfilm, the studio renamed Soyuzmultfilm that year. Yuri Popov was the art director.
Themes
Making
Ivanov reused the animal band from Quartet, made the year before, as the guests at the rooster's party.
Look
D. Karetny photographed the black-and-white cel drawings.
Music
Aleksandr Varlamov wrote the score. The housewarming is played as a jazz number while the hens dance.
Preservation
A 10-minute print circulates. Wikimedia Commons holds a file of it.
Notes
- Russian title: Lisa-stroitel.
- In Krylov the victim is a lion. Here the rooster hires the fox and ends as her prey.
- The musicians are the bear, goat, donkey, and monkey from Ivanov's 1935 Quartet, a film that survives only as a 1947 remake.
- Animators include Pyotr Nosov, Faina Epifanova, Lamis Bredis, and Boris Dyozhkin.
- A later cartoon with the same title was released in 1950 and stays closer to Krylov.
Scenes
- The fox hands the rooster a plan and is hired to build the yard.
- She leaves a hole in the new wall.
- After the chase she comes back for the rooster.
Influenced by
- The Fox the Builder (Ivan Krylov fable)
- Quartet (Aleksandr Ivanov, 1935)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1936. Лиса-строитель.webm)
