The Merry Musicians
About The Merry Musicians
A donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster are each turned out by a master. They meet on the road to Bremen and decide to make music together. They stack themselves, bray and crow at a house full of robbers, and the robbers run. The four stay in the house.
Cast & crew
More about The Merry Musicians
Aleksandr Ptushko directed the puppet film and wrote it with S. Bolotin, who wrote the song lyrics. It is the Grimm tale The Town Musicians of Bremen. Mosfilm's puppet unit released it on 16 March 1938. Yury Milyutin wrote the music. A later account times the film at 15 minutes and calls it the first Soviet version of the tale.
Themes
Making
Ptushko was running Mosfilm's dimensional-animation unit. The animals are puppets, and the scare is the Grimm stack: one on top of the next, all of them noisy.
Music
Yury Milyutin wrote the music. S. Bolotin wrote the song lyrics.
Preservation
A puppet print survives.
Notes
- Mikhail Dagmarov and Vladimir Lepko are billed.
- Ptushko made it just after The Tale of the Fisherman and the Goldfish (1937), both puppet films at Mosfilm.
- The 1969 Soyuzmultfilm Bremen Town Musicians adds a troubadour and a princess. This 15-minute film stays with the four animals and the robbers.
- The Russian title is Весёлые музыканты.
Scenes
- The four meet on the road after each master throws one out.
- They stand on each other's backs and the robbers flee the noise.
Influenced by
- Grimm tale The Town Musicians of Bremen
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1936. Весёлые музыканты.webm)
