The Wolf And The Seven Kids

1938 Animation 13 minutes Directed by Sarra Mokil

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About The Wolf And The Seven Kids

A mother goat leaves her seven kids with orders not to open the door. The wolf has a blacksmith thin his voice and disguises his hide, gets in, and swallows six kids. The smallest hides and tells the mother when she returns. She finds the wolf asleep, cuts him open, pulls the kids out, sews stones into the belly, and he sinks when he bends to drink at the river.

Cast & crew

More about The Wolf And The Seven Kids

Sarra Mokil wrote and directed this color puppet short at Mosfilm. Valentin Kadochnikov was the designer. Vasily Shirinsky wrote the music and Tatyana Sikorskaya the song lyric. It reached theaters in June 1938. Animators included A. Veselova, Mariya Benderskaya, and K. Zalle. M. Berkovich and Leonid Knyazhinsky operated the cameras.

Themes

Making

Mokil’s crew worked on a puppet stage at Mosfilm, not on inked cels at Soyuzmultfilm. The color lived on separation negatives rather than a single color camera negative.

Look

M. Berkovich and Leonid Knyazhinsky shot the puppets for Mershin’s three-color chromated-gelatin process, one of the first Soviet films made that way.

Technique

The color was printed by Pavel Mershin’s chromated-gelatin method from three separation negatives.

Music

Vasily Shirinsky composed the score. Tatyana Sikorskaya wrote the song lyric. A. Gornshtein and V. Ladygina recorded the sound.

Preservation

Gosfilmofond holds the original color-separation negatives. A color version was restored from them in 2011. A black-and-white circulation copy also exists.

Notes

  • Russian sources describe it as a puppet film of the Russian folk tale, the same story the Grimms printed as The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids.
  • It was shot in color by Pavel Mershin’s chromated-gelatin process, from three separation negatives. The release print ran about 345 meters.
  • Sound was recorded by V. Ladygina and A. Gornshtein.
  • Gosfilmofond reconstructed the color version from those negatives in 2011.
  • A circulating digital copy runs 12 minutes and 9 seconds.

Scenes

  • The wolf leaves the blacksmith with a thinner voice.
  • Six kids disappear in one swallow. The smallest stays hidden.
  • The mother cuts the sleeping wolf open and sews stones in his place.
  • He leans over the river and the stones pull him under.

Influenced by

  • The Russian folk tale The Wolf and the Seven Kids

Also available

  • Gosfilmofond (2011 color restoration)