Jolly Fellows (1934 film)

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Jolly Fellows
Film poster
Directed by	Grigori Aleksandrov
Written by	Grigori Aleksandrov Nikolai Erdman
Starring	Lyubov Orlova Leonid Utyosov
Music by	Isaak Dunayevsky
Release date(s)	1934 March 24, 1935
Running time	96 min
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian
IMDb profile

Jolly Fellows (Russian: Весёлые ребята, Vesyoliye Rebyata) was the first Soviet musical comedy film (1934), directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and starring his wife Lyubov Orlova, a gifted singer and the first recognized star of Soviet cinema.

The script was written by Aleksandrov, Vladimir Mass, and Nikolai Erdman (whose father briefly appears on screen as a German music teacher). It features several songs which instantly became classics across the Soviet Union. The most famous song — "Kak mnogo devushek horoshih" (Such a lot of nice girls!) — enjoyed international fame, covered as "Serdtse" (Heart) by Pyotr Leshchenko. Music was by Isaak Dunayevsky, the lyrics were written by the Soviet poet Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.

Both Orlova and her co-star, the jazz singer and comic actor Leonid Utyosov, were propelled to stardom after this movie.

[edit] Plot

Yelena (Mariya Strelkova), a well-off wanna-be singer who is unable to hold the tune, mistakes shepherd Kostya Potekhin (Leonid Utyosov) for a famous Italian conductor of a jazz orchestra and invites him to an elegant party held in her house. He plays his pan flute, which attracts the herd of animals from his kolkhoz to the dining tables. Yelena's servant Anyuta (Lyubov Orlova) falls for Kostya. But Kostya is attracted to Yelena and when she turns him down following the discovery of his real identity, he is very upset. He leaves for the city to try himself as a professional musician and finds himself in many comical situations. Eventually he joins a jazz band consisting of young "jolly fellows". Kostya becomes a head of the band and it turns to be quite a challenge - not only is he supposed to manage the creative work and performances but also control his quick-tempered band-mates whose fiery arguments sometimes turn rehearsals into a brawl that results in that the band is turned out of the house by their landlord for the noise and mess they made. Because of this the band is urged to rehearse before a forthcoming performance right in the street and even play at funerals for more practice. On a rainy evening Kostya and his band mates accidentally meet Anyuta on their way to a concert hall and take her with themselves. She is revealed to be an excellent singer, so she joins the band and they start to perform together successfully.