The Foundling
About The Foundling
Five-year-old Natasha is left with her brother Yura while their mother goes to the country to rent a summer house. Yura's friends fill the next room, and Natasha walks out of the apartment alone. A kindergarten cannot get her surname. A childless geologist, Yevgeny Semyonovich, and his neighbor both claim her, and she slips away after a cat. Lyalya and her husband Mulya decide to adopt her after she nearly steps in front of a car, then lose her in a crowd of football fans at the station, where she hands flowers to the athletes. The missing-persons investigator Sergeev brings her home. In her crib she tells Yura she has already been found, and asks her mother if they can get lost together tomorrow.
Cast & crew
More about The Foundling
Tatyana Lukashevich directed Rina Zelyonaya and Agniya Barto's script at Mosfilm. The catalog year is 1939; the film opened on 27 January 1940. The maid Arisha was not in the first draft. Zelyonaya added her from a woman she knew. Between takes Faina Ranevskaya tossed off "Mulya, don't irritate me," and the line stayed in.
Themes
Background
The day is a Moscow summer before the war: a dacha hunt, a kindergarten, and a football crowd at the station.
Making
The negative was destroyed during the war. A positive copy at Gosfilmofond was the source of a 1988 restoration.
Reviews
Reviews ran before and just after the opening: Mikhail Dolgopolov in Izvestia on 25 January 1940, S. Tregub in Pravda the same day, and Viktor Shklovsky in Literaturnaya Gazeta on 30 January 1940. Iskusstvo kino and Sovetsky kinoekran also wrote about it.
Look
Semyon Sheynin was the cinematographer.
Music
Nikolay Kryukov wrote the score. The mother's lullaby begins "In our joyful land, they love my little girl."
Preservation
The negative was lost in the war. Gosfilmofond held a positive, restored in 1988. A colorized version appeared in 2010.
Notes
- Veronika Lebedeva plays Natasha. Dima Glukhov plays her brother Yura. Olga Zhizneva plays their mother.
- Rostislav Plyatt, in his first notable film part, is the bachelor geologist Yevgeny Semyonovich.
- Faina Ranevskaya and Pyotr Repnin are the childless couple Lyalya and Mulya. Rina Zelyonaya plays Arisha.
- Wikidata lists 68 minutes. Russian and English Wikipedia both give 76.
- The film was black and white. A colorized version was issued in 2010.
Scenes
- Natasha walks out while Yura's pioneer friends argue in the next room.
- She vanishes from the geologist's flat while the adults quarrel over who may keep her.
- At the station she is swept into the football crowd and hands the athletes flowers.
- Sergeev puts her back in the crib, and she tells Yura she has been found.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Podkidysh. Подкидыш. 1939.ogv)
Quotes
Mulya, don't irritate me!
Tell me, little one, what do you want — your head torn off, or to go to the summer house?
Yura, I'm already found!
Mama, let's get lost together tomorrow.
