Jolly Fellows
About Jolly Fellows
Shepherd Kostya Potekhin is mistaken in Odessa for a famous conductor. He keeps the act up for Anyuta, leads a jazz band at the Odessa Music Hall, and is booked for the Bolshoi in Moscow. Leonid Utyosov plays Kostya. Lyubov Orlova plays Anyuta. Grigori Aleksandrov directed. The Russian title is Vesyolye rebyata. Other English titles are Happy-Go-Lucky Guys, Moscow Laughs, and Jazz Comedy.
Cast & crew
More about Jolly Fellows
Aleksandrov, Vladimir Mass, and Nikolai Erdman wrote the script. Vladimir Nilsen and Boris Aretskiy photographed it. Isaak Dunayevsky wrote the music. Vasily Lebedev-Kumach wrote the lyrics. Wikidata lists publication dates of August 1934 and 25 December 1934, and a running time of 96 minutes. Erdman’s father appears briefly as a German music teacher. The studio credit on Wikidata is Mosfilm.
Themes
Making
Aleksandrov built the first widely shown Soviet musical comedy around Utyosov’s jazz and Orlova’s singing, with Dunayevsky writing tunes that left the film.
Look
Vladimir Nilsen and Boris Aretskiy shot the Odessa mix-up and the Moscow booking.
Music
Isaak Dunayevsky wrote the music and Vasily Lebedev-Kumach the lyrics. “Kak mnogo devushek khoroshikh” is the song Leshchenko later sang as “Serdtse.”
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The best-known song, “Kak mnogo devushek khoroshikh,” was covered abroad by Pyotr Leshchenko as “Serdtse.”
- Orlova, Aleksandrov’s wife, and Utyosov both became stars from this picture.
- Mariya Strelkova, Fyodor Kurikhin, and Yelena Tyapkina are also billed.
- A Commons file uses both the Russian and English titles.
Scenes
- Kostya is greeted in Odessa as the famous conductor.
- He leads the jazz band at the Music Hall for Anyuta.
- The booking comes through for the Bolshoi.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Веселые ребята - Jolly Fellows.webm)
