Wednesday, May 21, 2014

BEHIND THE IRON CUR-TOON

I don't know when or why I started recognizing certain cartoons as Russian ones. I don't recall being exposed to them often on TV. But their polished appearance, characters who, to me, seemed extremely realistic at the time, and the strange, almost "backward" timing let me know what I was seeing in seconds. Thanks to You Tube and Dailymotion, the films from the 1940s and '50s are easy to see; too bad most of them are the Most Boring Films on Earth.

It's the animation for adults that tend to offer real surprises, but there are gems among the childrens' films as well. Here's one that made a big, BIG impression on me as a youngster when I saw it dubbed in English in a department store "kiddie theater". The signs in that version were crossed out on the film, frame-by-frame (occasionally revealed), which was just as impressive...and mysterious.



Yrs, MK

1 comment:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Thanks to You Tube and Dailymotion, the films from the 1940s and '50s are easy to see; too bad most of them are the Most Boring Films on Earth.

That's true really, what with Soyuzmultfilm pretty much following the Disney formula for many of these until UPA happened, then you saw it trickle through the East after the 60's.