The Bremen Town Musicians

A troubadour and four animals travel the roads: a donkey, a dog, a cat and a cockerel. They live by singing. They come to a city and see the king's daughter there. The princess falls in love with the troubadour and wants to go with him. The king refuses and drives them out. Then they come upon a house in the forest with robbers inside. The animals climb on one another, pretend to be a monster and take the house. Now they have a plan: they will dress as robbers, get into the palace and take the princess. Inessa Kovalevskaya directs. Gennadiy Gladkov wrote the music; Oleg Anofriev sang most of the songs and voiced almost all the characters. It is a Soviet production, made in 1969. The source is the Brothers Grimm tale, but the adaptation changes it greatly; there is no princess and no troubadour in the tale. The film is short; it runs about twenty minutes. The music is its best known side; the songs were sold on record in the Soviet Union and were listened to for generations. The visual design differs from the Soviet animation of its time; the drawing is plain and the characters are close to western pop culture. The narrative gives almost no room to dialogue; the story moves through the songs. A sequel was made a few years later. Its limit is scale; the narrative is short, the events simple, and there is no depth of character. Who it is for: viewers who like Soviet animation and musical shorts. Who it is not for: it is very short, simple, and the ending abrupt.