Those of us who are Baby Boomers are possibly acquainted with Russian animation without knowing it. Those elaborate, sober, drowsy cartoons with stereotyped casts of sly wolves and foxes, vulnerable bunny rabbits, and the wisdom spouting, patriarchal bears presiding over the proceedings were visible in kids’ TV packages such as BOZO’S STORYBOOK, THE NUTTY SQUIRRELS and CAPT’N SAILORBIRD. By then the films had been stripped of their original soundtracks and offensively narrated, often robbing the cartoons of their original meaning. Sometimes, this was intentional.
Many of these cartoons had been produced during and after World War II by Soyuzmultfilm, the largest and most prestigious Soviet animation studio. Animation had by then been affected by the elected, official art style, “Socialist Realism”. Traces of abstraction were sacrificed for an idealized literalism. Fewer American influences were to distract the people from their duties as good Soviet citizens.
The 1920s saw Soviet animation begin in a flush of youthful enthusiasm. Lenin had declared, “Of all the arts, for us, the cinema is the most important.” Avant garde artists and their students rallied to the exciting new call. A media deluge flowed forth to spread the gospels of socialism; ‘Agitprop’ (‘Agitation Propaganda’) trains toured remote areas with the message. Animation was still untrod territory. Many of the art’s notables got their starts working on such landmark productions as 1924’s SOVIET TOYS (the first Soviet animated reel), CHINA IN FLAMES (also 1924, often cited as the first full-length cartoon, in fact a visual lecture running just over half an hour), and 1929’s INTERPLANETARY REVOLUTION, possibly the first credible science fiction animation. These films were made in an amateurish fashion by co-operatives; a number of teams created their segments independently, then edited them together into a confused whole. It wasn’t until Disney scored world wide success with his SILLY SYMPHONIES that countries got interested in industrializing the art form.
from “Facist Boots On Our Homeland” (1941)
In its early years, the studio went through a period of searching, creating cartoons in various styles for general audiences. Some films were hardcore propaganda; others were without overt (but often with covert) political intent. A quantity of high comedies were introduced, transparently inspired not only by Disney, but the cartoons of the more slapstick US studios, most apparently Max Fleischer’s.
By 1939, the scope of influence had narrowed to the literalism of Disney’s features. With exceptions rarely seen stateside, animation was confined to entertainment for youngsters, rendered in what the filmmakers termed “Éclair style”; lavish, richly colored, heavily rotoscoped, and lethargically paced. Thanks to YouTube, a great many of these movies are available for viewing, and for free. It is a shame so many of them qualify for The Most Boring Films on Earth.
In this article, we will focus on the 1936-38 period. Ten years later, the artists probably thought smugly, “We’re past all that”, but I find films at this experimental stage most fascinating. The fun years.
THE RETURNED SUN (1936)
Made in the studio’s first year of production, this film concentrates on the folklore genre that became almost mandatory in a few years. At this early point, there is an exhilarating newness. It’s a real eye dazzler. The technique is early and inconsistent. The sumptuous use of ‘cycles’ (repeated movements), judiciously used here, was soon rejected, most likely being perceived as an unworthy trick. After 1939, even pan ‘cycles’ of characters running were eliminated, giving the animation a flaccid quality that became a trademark. What is not understood in those cartoons (as well as in Eastern animation made for modern day US programming) is that intelligently used ‘cycles’ serve as a rhythmic base as well as a footage eater. As a commenter on YouTube notes, it can make a sequence of animated spectacle even more appreciable.
Director Olga Khodatayeva (1894-1968) had worked in animation since 1924. Thanks to its boldly graphic approach and fearless scenes of difficult motion as well as a fine score, her cartoon covers new grounds one is tempted to say American studios had yet to explore.
HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKIN (1938)
Pilfering a sweetmeat costs a hippo six minutes of fairly vicious retribution in this Rudyard Kipling parody. Free from concerns about foreign copyrights, Russian creators felt free to adapt any Western story they chose, which explains their series of Winnie the Pooh films. This is done in an amusing comic strip style, expertly synchronized to a jazz-tinged score.
The director is Vladimir Grigorevich Suteev (1903-1993), regarded as the founder of the Soviet cartoon, and internationally loved as a children’s book creator. He worked on CHINA IN FLAMES, and was the creator of Russia’s first sound cartoon (1931).
Our last two films reflect the Soviet state’s deep confusion regarding its policy on popular music. Jazz was periodically demonized as an undesirable symbol of the decadent West, yet many of the proletariat welcomed it as a cathartic and liberating experience. Was art really serving the people? While the jazz debate wobbled with Stalin’s whims, there were windows of time in which jazz was safe to celebrate, and the two conflicting sides allowed to be heard, even from within the same studio.
THE PUBLIC’S FAVORITE (1937)
Itinerant musicians pollute the air with their foreign sounds, until it is made clear that the only music the people want to hear is their own (a plot used postwar as well). Though the story makes no bones about its cultural stance, it is filmed in a delicious, unpredictable rubberhose style by accomplished artists still toying with the methods of Western-style animation. The studio’s early penchant for tracking shots and other camera magic is much in evidence.
Director Alexander Ivanov (born 1899), “Patriarch of Soviet Animation”, was involved in the making of SOVIET TOYS in 1924, and stayed productive in animation and political cartooning until his death in 1959.
A NOISY VOYAGE (1938)
Jazz is personified by an ever-smiling frog (resembling Froggy the Gremlin) who brightens the days of overworked sailors, and is challenged by the wicked skipper striving to silence him.
Could it be significant that this is another piece by the director of the free and funny HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKIN, Vladimir Grigorevich Suteev? From the Popeye-like skipper to the jazz that startlingly saves the day, the film betrays a fondness for Western cultures that would soon be suppressed.
Milton Knight is an artist of wide experience, having been involved in comics, illustration, animation and painting. You’ve seen his animation in Sonic The Hedgehog, The Twisted Tales of Felix The Cat and in Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World. His comic art has graced Mighty Mouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and his own book, Hugo. Knight has also recently completed his first novel. Visit his blog at 
Absolutely fascinating article! Great stuff.
I was always hoping somebody here would take on this studio. Even though I did see THE SNOW QUEEN early in life on TV, it wasn’t until I got the DVDs for the studio’s sixties-through-eighties short films that I officially became “smitten”. After 1960, they evolved from being the Soviet Disney to a Soviet combination of UPA, Zagreb and the National Film Board of Canada… with a myriad of different animation styles and experimentation. Every one of the titles in that original 4 DVD set is worth watching multiple times.
Yeah… the studio did go through a “dull” stage when they moved into color by 1945. (Mostly it was Aleksandr Ptushko’s puppetoon factory making the color product earlier in the ’30s, surprisingly not Soyuzmultfilm.) Once they could “out-Disney” Disney, there was some stagnation. All of the rotoscoping of human characters certainly didn’t help. However, a better way to look at the post-war 40s and 50s is “hit and miss”, because… yes… there are plenty of “gems” among the rubble. Also the puppet animation after 1954 was consistently good… and a nice alternative to the cell-animation that was getting repetitive.
There is little question that the “zenith” years were the sixties and seventies though. As much as I like Chuck Jones’ version of RIKKI TIKKI TAVY, the Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya version done nine years earlier is a masterpiece, in my opinion. No offense to Disney, but the Soviet versions of both THE JUNGLE BOOK (i.e the “Maugli” series) and WINNIE THE POOH really need wider exposure.
But… I am obviously getting ahead. The ’30s were definitely the fun “experimental” years before the atmosphere got too serious during the war.
A revered American animator…possibly Bill Littlejohn…said the Russians turned out better Pooh films than Disney did.
“A revered American animator…possibly Bill Littlejohn…said the Russians turned out better Pooh films than Disney did.”
Wasn’t it Woolie Reitherman (the director of the Disney Pooh shorts) who said this to the director of the Soyuzmultfilm Poohs?
Thank you, Mesterius!
I knew it had happened, thought it was one of the 9 Old Men, couldn’t remember which one. Instead, Littlejohn was suggested to me, so I’ll remember, and maybe enter it in the article above!
Wasn’t it Woolie Reitherman (the director of the Disney Pooh shorts) who said this to the director of the Soyuzmultfilm Poohs?
Shows what a genius Fyodor Khitruk was. He got his start doing a lot of these tame, Disney-like cartoons at Soyuzmultfilm before getting to flex his grown-up muscles in the 60’s with such gems like “Story of a Crime” and “Film Film Film”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Khitruk
That will be a fun post… when you get to the sixties/seventies with Pooh and Mowgli, now that we know the Disney-Soyuzmultfilm connection didn’t go unnoticed from both ends. Fortunately, some of the stuff is pretty easy to find on youtube. Somewhere in storage, I have the Disney record of Sterling Holloway telling Kipling’s “The Cat that Walked by Himself” and was always disappointed that the studio didn’t tackle that one like Soyuzmultfilm did… twice. Maybe because it is too “talky” and Disney thought American kiddies would get too bored? Ha ha!
Going off-topic, but getting back to the decade profiled here…. are there any videos of “Strekoza I Muravej (The Dragon-Fly And The Ant)” floating around? This is a “proto” Soyuzmultfilm (I think with Mezhrabpomfilm as the company involved) involving Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Valentina & Zinaida Brumberg that was, like some of the Ptushko films for Mosfilm, done in full color. Clearly the Disney influence was full force by 1935, since this was sort of knock-off of “The Grasshopper and the Ants”. The 1961 version is on dailymotion… just saw that one for the first time. (Yeah… there are a lot of Soviet goodies that I am only just starting to discover. No doubt there will be quite a few HERE I haven’t watched yet.)
Is Stalin THE Joseph Stalin?
Yes!
Thanks for all the Commie propaganda, Milton! I liked “The Public’s Favorite” and “A Noisy Voyage” best of the four. The frog in “Noisy Voyage” is a bit like Froggy the Gremlin, but he also reminded me of the frog in the Terrytoon, “A Bully Frog” (1936), and the bandstand composition at the end reminded me of Disney’s “Blue Rhythm” (1931). The pig and singing duck characters in “The Public’s Favorite” were a lot of fun to look at, I liked some of the animated camera moves as they moved from cels to painted backgrounds and back to cels again. It is good to know that Soviet animation went through a brief period of looseness before it discovered the rotoscope.
Ah, yes, the days of obscure Russian and Eastern European cartoons interrupting our Bugs Bunny Shows. Ch.38 in Boston bought the “Nutty Squirrels” package in the early 70s, but didn’t show the wraparounds with the Squirrels, leaving me confused over the title. I thought it was just laziness. I liked classic animation but hated these imports for their drowsy soberness. Going back and re watching them, one can see some of the propaganda messages. Remember the “Simpsons” episode where Krusty is reduced to showing “Eastern Europe’s favorite Cat and Mouse team, Worker and Parasite”?