The Hunchedback Horse

Name: The Hunchedback Horse
Director: Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Animation
Released: 1947
Duration: 57 min
Cast: Anatoliy Kubatskiy, Georgi Millyar, Valentina Sperantova, Georgiy Vitsin, Alik Kachanov

1947 Adventure Family 57 minutes Directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano

About The Hunchedback Horse

Ivan, the youngest son and the one called a fool, is given two black stallions and a little humpbacked horse by a flying mare. His brothers steal the stallions. Ivan and the humpbacked horse fly to the city, where he sells the horses to the tsar and becomes stable master. The courtier Spalnik keeps raising the demand: the firebird, then the tsar-maiden. The tsar wants youth from three baths, in boiling milk, hot water, and freezing water, and tries them on Ivan. The horse spells the water. Ivan comes out handsome, marries the tsar-maiden, and becomes tsar. The old tsar dies in the baths.

Cast & crew

More about The Hunchedback Horse

Ivan Ivanov-Vano directed at Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow. The Wikipedia page also credits B. Butakov. Wikidata names Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya as co-director. Nikolay Rozhkov and Yevgeni Pomeshchikov wrote it from Pyotr Yershov's verse tale. The Russian track is spoken in rhyme. The USSR release was 10 January 1947.

Themes

A fool and a humpbacked horse
Tasks the courtier keeps raising
Three baths that kill the tsar
Ivan
humpbacked horse
firebird
tsar-maiden
Yershov
Soyuzmultfilm
animation

Music

Viktor Oransky wrote the score. The dialogue is Yershov's verse, spoken in rhyme.

Notes

Wikidata also lists 13 November 1947. A U.S. release is dated 5 May 1949.
The English dub keeps little of the rhyme.
Ivanov-Vano and Soyuzmultfilm remade it in 1975, at 73 minutes. That version opened in the United States on 25 October 1977 as The Magic Pony, in an English version by George Molko.
Voice credits associated with the 1947 film include Anatoliy Kubatskiy, Georgi Millyar, Valentina Sperantova, and Georgiy Vitsin.