The Goalkeeper
About The Goalkeeper
Anton Kandidov ferries watermelons on the Volga. Players from the Moscow factory side Gidraer watch him catch them and sign him in goal. He becomes the best keeper in the city and stops coming to the factory. After he is criticized he moves to the rival club Torpedo, lets in an early goal, fouls, and is sent off. His old teammates bring him back to Gidraer. When the Black Buffalos, an international side, play a Soviet team, Anton saves a last-minute penalty and runs the length of the field to score the winner.
Cast & crew
More about The Goalkeeper
Semyon Timoshenko directed. Lev Kassil and Lazar Yudin wrote the screenplay from Kassil's novel The Goalkeeper of the Republic. Lenfilm released it on 25 December 1936. It is a sports musical comedy.
Themes
In film history
It was the first Soviet full-length feature about association football. Kassil's novel was one of the first Soviet books about sport.
Making
Working footballers were put into the match scenes.
Look
Vladimir Danashevsky photographed the Volga opening and the matches.
Music
Isaak Dunayevsky wrote the music.
Notes
- Grigory Pluzhnik plays Anton. Tatyana Guretskaya plays Grusha. Lyudmila Glazova plays the lab technician Nastya.
- Valeri Solovtsov plays Bukhvostov, captain of Gidraer. Vladimir Kryuger plays Tsvetochkin, captain of Torpedo. Yakov Gudkin plays the inside forward Foma.
- Footballers Konstantin Shchegotsky, Anton Idzkovsky, and Makar Goncharenko appear as themselves.
- The Commons filename attached in the catalog, 1935. Три товарища.webm, is Three Friends, a different picture.
Scenes
- Anton is spotted because he can catch watermelons tossed from a boat.
- Sent off for Torpedo, he later saves a penalty against the Black Buffalos and scores at the other end.
Influenced by
- Lev Kassil's novel The Goalkeeper of the Republic
