Volga-Volga
Volga-Volga | |
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![]() Film poster, 1938. | |
Directed by | Grigori Aleksandrov |
Starring | Lyubov Orlova Igor Ilyinsky |
Edited by | Yeva Ladyzhenskaya |
Music by | Isaak Dunayevsky |
Release dates | April 24, 1938 (Soviet Union) May 16, 1941 (U.S.) |
Running time | 104 min. |
Country | Soviet Union |
Language | Russian |
Volga-Volga (Russian: Волга-Волга) is a Soviet musical comedy directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, released on April 24, 1938. It centres on a group of amateur performers on their way to Moscow to perform in a talent contest called the Moscow Musical Olympiad. Most of the action takes place on a steamboat travelling on the Volga River. The lead roles were played by Alexandrov's wife, Lyubov Orlova, and Igor Ilyinsky.
According to Orlova, the name of the film is taken from a popular Russian folk song, Stenka Razin, that Alexandrov sang while rowing with Charlie Chaplin in San Francisco Bay. Chaplin jokingly suggested the words as a title for a movie, but Alexandrov took it seriously and named his new film Volga-Volga.[1]
The feature was said to be Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin's favourite film.[2] Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs says that in the pre-World War II period Stalin laughed at him since he resembled a character from the film.
In 2006, a colorization of the original black-and-white film began. The colorized version premiered on the Russian First Channel on February 14, 2010.
Cast
- Igor Ilyinsky - Ivan Byvalov, head of management at a small handicraft industry in the city Melkovodsk
- Lyubov Orlova - Dunya Petrova (aka Arrow), letter carrier
- Vladimir Volodin - old pilot
- Pavel Olenev - Kuzma Ivanovich, water carrier / chef (reciter)
- Andrey Tutyshkin - Alesha Trubyshkin, accountant
- Sergey Antimonov - janitor Okhapkin
- Anatoly Shalaev - young composer
- Maria Mironova - Zoya, secretary of Byvalova
- Nikita Kondratyev - Philip Ivanovich, waiter
- Vsevolod Sanayev - bearded lumberjack / member of the symphony orchestra
- Aleksey Dolinin - policeman
- Ivan Chuvelev - chairman of the jury of the Olympics
Gallery
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Igor Ilyinsky and Maria Mironova
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Igor Ilyinsky
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Lyubov Orlova
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Andrey Tutyshkin
References
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Volga-Volga at IMDb
- Volga-Volga at AllMovie
- Stalin's favourite film restored in colour, AFP, 12/02/2010.
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- Soviet films
- 1938 films
- Mosfilm films
- Films set in Russia
- Soviet black-and-white films
- Russian-language films
- Films directed by Grigori Aleksandrov
- 1938 musical comedy films
- Soviet musical comedy films
- Russian musical comedy films
- Russian films
- Films shot in Moscow
- Films shot in Nizhny Novgorod
- Films scored by Isaak Dunayevsky
- 1938 comedy films
- 1930s Soviet film stubs
- 1930s comedy film stubs