0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

0:05

of My Heart Radio. Hey,

0:13

welcome to Weird House Cinema. This

0:15

is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

0:18

And this is gonna be I think it's gonna be the last

0:21

new episode of Weird House Cinema

0:23

for the year before we return

0:26

in the new year. And it's pretty exciting

0:28

because we essentially have one last

0:30

holiday selection here. It's

0:33

one that is near

0:35

and dear to my heart. I can safely say at this point

0:37

it's it's my steem for this film has

0:39

built up over the years,

0:42

over the decades, and I

0:44

feel like I'm I'm at a level of just maximum

0:47

appreciation for it. Now Christmas

0:49

with the Cranks. No no, no, uh

0:51

no, we're gonna be talking about the

0:54

nineteen sixties Russian fairy

0:56

tale spectacular Morosco,

0:58

better known to many ends in the West as

1:01

Jack Frost. I think it's sometimes

1:03

called Frosty or Father Frost.

1:06

You might recall our mention of this film and the past

1:08

episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind that

1:11

touch on things like mushroom culture and

1:13

Russian folklore. Now, I did not know

1:15

that it was called Frosty, but that would make

1:17

sense because immediately I think of

1:20

how some people I don't do this, by the way,

1:22

but some people who get the frosty is at Wendy's

1:24

dipped the French fries in them. And

1:26

this movie is very much like that. It is a is

1:28

like a salty fried potato products

1:31

dipped into something sweet and cold

1:33

on the tongue. Uh. It is

1:35

a mash up of different kinds of fairytale

1:38

flavors and genres. It

1:40

is a scatter gun blast of of

1:42

weird, magical elements of folklore.

1:44

Now, of course, if you grew up in the United States, particularly

1:47

during the nineteen nineties, then

1:49

your introduction to this film I think

1:51

it was likely through Mystery Science Theater

1:53

three thousand, episode eight thirteen,

1:56

which aired in ven. Uh.

1:58

This was a riff of this film. Um.

2:01

But if you grew up in Russia or in parts

2:03

of Eastern Europe, then this movie was

2:06

likely far more than a weird oddity

2:08

for your amusement. Uh. This may

2:10

have been your holiday viewing tradition,

2:13

either around Christmas or New Year's

2:16

In fact, in the late nineties,

2:18

I remember that this would have been not too

2:20

long after it Actually an MST episode

2:22

actually aired I I was. I

2:25

instantly loved it. Um, I couldn't

2:27

necessarily, you know, explain why

2:29

I loved it. And that's when I think the beauties

2:31

about Mystery Science Theater three thousand is. Like

2:33

I've said before, I feel like you kind of showed

2:36

many of us that these sorts of films existed

2:38

and taught us at least some ways of appreciating

2:41

them. Um. But but anyway, I really

2:43

liked the episode. And I was hanging out

2:45

with um a friend from high

2:47

school and a foreign exchange student from the

2:50

Czech Republic who was staying with

2:52

that friend at the time, and for some reason I either

2:54

described this episode to them, or perhaps I actually

2:56

showed them part of the episode, like I put it on a VHS

2:59

tape or something, and Marcatta,

3:01

the student told me, instantly recognized

3:03

it and said, oh, this this is the film we watch

3:05

every year. This is our Christmas tradition, Um,

3:08

that they show it on TV every Christmas,

3:10

and it's just an essential part of the holiday,

3:13

you know, as as Christmas e as the baby

3:15

Jesus lowering gifts from heaven on a golden

3:17

string. Now,

3:20

on one hand, that is very strange to me

3:22

because I like you first encountered this on Mystery

3:24

Science Theater, where I you know, the

3:27

mindset I was in when I first saw

3:29

it was what a you know, strange mushroom

3:31

to find in the forest, Like it was just this

3:33

bizarre oddity from from out of the

3:36

nineteenth dimension. But now

3:39

seeing it again, especially without the Mystery

3:41

Science Theater, just watching the movie on its own,

3:44

it has the same kind of weird texture

3:46

as as a lot of Christmas classics

3:49

that that we did grow up with, like, um,

3:52

I don't know, like the stop motion Rudolph read Nose,

3:54

Reindeer and things like that, except more

3:57

earthy. I mean, this feels more rooted

3:59

in in actually in real folklore

4:02

and and archetypes and imagery

4:04

that goes way back. Yeah,

4:06

this this film

4:08

is Is this not one of those films where you're

4:10

like, Okay, I guess I need to research my Russian

4:12

history or my Russian folklore before

4:14

I watched this so I know what's going on. No, all

4:17

that is great and and helps you appreciate it

4:19

more. But but all of this like

4:21

speaks on on a level

4:24

that I feel like like most of viewers,

4:27

especially the the sort

4:29

of intended viewer, the child either

4:31

the actual child or the child at heart will

4:34

instantly get what's going on throughout

4:36

most of this film. And in

4:38

case in point, um, this

4:40

film has been a viewing that

4:42

the MSTD version of this has been a

4:45

a ritual of of my wife and

4:47

eyes for many years now. We watched it every Thanksgiving.

4:50

Last Thanksgiving me, I believe, we introduced my

4:52

son to it and he was like, Okay, this is interesting.

4:55

And this year he said, I said,

4:57

hey, do you guys want to watch Jack Frost?

5:00

And he said, yeah, but I think we should watch it quote

5:02

without all the jokes. So he

5:04

wanted it unriffed. And so

5:07

I was delighted to try because I've been wanting to try that

5:09

out as well, because I knew at this point that

5:11

that, you know, the grubby visual

5:14

um film grade that we have in the MST

5:16

episodes is not a proper reflection

5:19

of the film. Uh So I really

5:21

wanted to watch a high definition version of it

5:23

anyway, and so we we watched

5:25

it and it was an absolute delight. Everybody enjoyed

5:28

it. He loved it. Um.

5:30

So, you know, nothing against

5:32

the MST version. I think it's a lot of fun. But

5:34

if that is the only version of Morosco

5:37

you've watched, then you're missing out

5:39

on just so many extra dimensional

5:41

colors. I think you're entirely correct. I

5:43

don't remember when we had this conversation, but you were

5:46

telling me this, uh some time, always

5:48

back and uh so I finally

5:50

watched it in in a higher definition

5:52

transfer. And this movie is

5:55

beautiful. Uh, it is, truly.

5:57

It's it's colorful. A

5:59

lot of the locations or gorgeous

6:01

that I mean, they picked really wonderful wilderness

6:03

settings, especially in the first half of the movie

6:05

that takes place in the in the spring or summer,

6:08

I guess. And uh so there are these hills

6:10

and forests and caves and meadows

6:13

and uh and and the colors of the costumes

6:15

just pop. Uh it's really

6:17

wonderful. Yeah, it's um

6:20

like, it just transforms the film in so many ways.

6:22

To watch it in this this full colorful

6:24

version. Uh. You know, for starters,

6:27

like if you have especially to Western viewers,

6:29

you have these scenes of you know, people

6:31

in Babushka's uh you know, wandering

6:33

about in the woods. Uh. If

6:35

you have drab colors, that takes on a

6:37

drab quality. But when it is

6:40

so bright and so beautiful, and the babushkas

6:42

are so you know, vibrantly

6:44

uh decorated. Um.

6:46

You know, it paints an entirely different picture

6:49

of of like rural living. It it

6:51

actually allows you to taste the

6:54

the the the folkloric ideal. Uh.

6:57

That's clearly this film is celebrating. You

6:59

know. It's funny. I'm shin the Rudolph the Red Nose Reinder

7:01

your thing. I just looked it up and it came

7:03

out apparently the same year as

7:06

both nineteen sixty four films. Okay,

7:09

yeah, and it is weird with with

7:11

Moroscoe. I've I've seen different dates for

7:13

it, Like sometimes I see nineteen sixty four, sometimes

7:15

I see sixty five. Um,

7:18

but at any rate, that is the time period

7:20

mid nineteen sixties h

7:22

that it emerges. So yeah,

7:24

this is essentially a big

7:26

budget folklore spectacular for

7:29

children, for the whole family, and it has

7:31

everything. It has the personification of winter,

7:34

it has the the evil which Baba

7:36

Yaga and their chicken footed house. You

7:38

have these troll like bandits

7:41

milling about, you have magical animals,

7:43

you have mushroom spirits, arranged

7:45

marriages, folkloric logic,

7:48

and just much much more. So

7:51

in terms of an elevator pitch for this movie,

7:53

I the only the best thing I could come up with is

7:56

looking for a change in life, consider wandering

7:58

into the Russian folkloric wilderness and see

8:00

what happens. The other way I'd frame

8:02

it is always be polite to magical

8:05

old people you meet in the woods. Absolutely,

8:08

I mean, that's that's just universal. All

8:10

right, maybe we need to hit some trailer audio. All

8:16

right, we'll playing hide and seek with me now

8:24

you yes, are

8:26

you a saucerer? Granddaddy? I dabble

8:29

into us for a little. But the truth is

8:31

that I get bored. You get

8:33

bored. I get bored. Come

8:35

on, play with me. Let's play hide and seek

8:37

together with you? Play

8:39

hide and seek? Yes, you're joking. I

8:42

catch you in no time, so yes,

8:44

I think so. If you catch me, I'll give you a well

8:46

bent bow and some nice trade arrows.

8:48

Is that a bargain? It's a bargain, Father Mushroom,

8:55

Okay, just kidding that that wasn't the trailer, because

8:57

apparently we we don't know if there is a trailer

8:59

that has an like English narration. But

9:02

I think there's a trailer at least with some singing. Yeah

9:04

yeah, And it's possible I missing something because

9:06

I did find trailers with English language for

9:09

other films from this particular director,

9:11

who will get to in a bit now.

9:13

Before we get to the connections, we do want

9:15

to talk just a little bit about about

9:17

folk tales and Russian folk tales and the Russian folk

9:19

tale that is at the key at the

9:21

center of all this UM. But before

9:23

we do so, I wanted to just mention a few quick

9:26

points that are actually from our episode

9:28

on the list UH from last

9:30

year that concerns Russian folklore.

9:32

UH. These were points made by Jack

9:35

V. Haney in the the excellent

9:38

book or series of books and mythology

9:40

and Anthology of Russian folk Tales. So,

9:42

first of all, he contends that more folk

9:45

tales may have emerged from the Russian people

9:47

than any other UH, due in part

9:49

to the fact that rural oral traditions

9:51

lasted well into the twentieth century.

9:54

He also says that Russia has the second

9:56

largest number of tale types according to

9:58

the International CLASSIFICA system, and

10:01

within these tales, who find lots

10:03

of animal stories. Frequent

10:06

villains include Baba Yaga, which

10:08

is nasty dwarves shape

10:11

shifting magicians. However,

10:13

Baba Yaga is also sometimes a donor

10:16

or a helper, so you know, some sometimes

10:18

she's a she's a villain. Sometimes

10:20

I guess she's kind of at an anti hero or something,

10:23

uh somebody that begrudgingly

10:25

helps our hero out. And that's good to keep in mind

10:28

in this film, because she's kind of both at

10:30

times. Um frequent

10:32

characters in general, You've got Baba

10:34

Yaga and her Hut, the Firebird, uh

10:37

Coshi, the Deathless uh Van.

10:40

Different versions of Ivan pop

10:42

up, and this is key. The

10:44

hero frequently wanders through the woods

10:47

at some point and receives help

10:49

in his quest from an animal or

10:51

some sort of supernatural aid.

10:53

Now, the movie Morosco or Jack

10:56

Frost actually seems

10:58

to smash together number

11:00

of different fairytale

11:02

archetypes. But I would say that the core,

11:05

the core of the story, the core situation

11:07

and backbone, is based

11:10

on a classic Russian fairy tale

11:12

known as moros Co or Father Frost,

11:15

which appeared in printed folk tale

11:17

collections going back at least as far as the nineteenth

11:19

century, maybe before then, and it

11:21

appears to be a variant of an extremely

11:24

widespread folk tale archetype

11:27

the essence of which is that there

11:29

are two girls, two sisters or step

11:31

sisters, a kind one who is rewarded

11:34

in a wicked one who has punished. Now,

11:36

I thought it would be great to actually, just uh, to

11:39

read through a version of

11:41

the Father Frost fairytale.

11:44

And this is the version collected by the

11:46

Scottish poet and anthropologist Andrew

11:48

Lang in the nineteenth century. So,

11:50

Robert, are you game to read this folk tale

11:52

with me and then see how it relates to the movie.

11:55

Let's do it. So this is Andrew Lang's

11:57

rendition of the story of King Frost.

12:00

There once upon a time was a peasant woman

12:03

who had a daughter and a step daughter. The

12:05

daughter had her own way in everything,

12:08

and whatever she did was right in her mother's

12:10

eyes. But the poor step daughter had

12:12

a hard time let her do what

12:14

she would. She was always blamed

12:17

and got small thanks for all the trouble she

12:19

took. Nothing was right, everything

12:21

wrong, And yet if the truth were known,

12:24

the girl was worth her weight in gold.

12:26

She was so unselfish and goodhearted.

12:28

But her stepmother did not like her, and

12:31

the poor girl's days were spent in

12:33

weeping, for it was impossible to

12:35

live peacefully with the woman. The wicked

12:37

shrew was determined to get rid of the

12:39

girl by fair means or foul, and

12:42

kept saying to her father, Send

12:44

her away, old man, Send her away

12:46

anywhere, so that my eyes shan't be plagued

12:49

any longer by the sight of her, or

12:51

my ears tormented by the sound of her

12:53

voice. Send her out into the fields,

12:55

and let the cutting frost to do for her.

12:58

In vain did the poor old father weep

13:01

and implore her pity. She was

13:03

firm, and he dared not gainsay

13:05

her. So he placed his daughter

13:07

in a sledge, not even daring to

13:09

give her a horsecloth to keep herself warm

13:11

with, and drove her out into the bare

13:14

open fields, where he kissed her

13:16

and left her, driving home as fast

13:18

as he could, that he might not witness

13:20

her miserable death. Deserted

13:23

by her father, the poor girl sat down

13:25

under a fir tree at the edge of the forest

13:27

and began to weep silently. Suddenly

13:30

she heard a faint sound. It

13:33

was King Frost, springing

13:35

from tree to tree and cracking

13:37

his fingers as he went. At length

13:40

he reached the fir tree beneath which she

13:42

was sitting and with a crisp, crackling

13:44

sound, he alighted beside her and

13:46

looked at her lovely face. Well

13:49

maiden, he snapped out. Do you know

13:51

who I am? I am King Frost,

13:53

King of the Red Noses. All

13:56

healthy, you great King, answered the girl

13:58

in a gentle, trembling voice. Have

14:00

you come to take me away? Are you warm

14:03

a maiden? He replied? Quite

14:05

warm, King Frost, she answered, though

14:07

she shivered as she spoke. Then

14:09

King Frost stooped down and bent over

14:11

the girl, and the crackling sound grew

14:13

louder, and the air seemed to be full

14:15

of knives and darts. And again

14:18

he asked, maiden, are you warm?

14:20

Are you warm, beautiful girl? And

14:23

though her breath was almost frozen on her lips,

14:25

she whispered gently, quite warm,

14:27

King Frost. Then King Frost

14:29

gnashed his teeth and cracked his fingers,

14:32

and his eyes sparkled, and the crackling,

14:34

crisp sound was louder than ever, and

14:37

for the last time he asked her, maiden,

14:39

are you still warm? Are you still

14:41

warm? Little love? And the

14:43

poor girl was so stiff and nun that she

14:45

could just gasp still warm,

14:48

O King. Now her gentle, courteous

14:50

words, and her uncomplaining ways touched

14:52

King Frost, and he had pity on her,

14:55

and he wrapped her up in furs and covered

14:57

her with blankets, and he fetched a great

14:59

bo in which were beautiful jewels

15:02

and a rich robe embroidered in gold

15:04

and silver. And she put it on and

15:06

looked more lovely than ever, and King Frost

15:09

stepped with her into his sledge with

15:11

six white horses. Okay,

15:15

here we got intermission on the folk tail. So

15:17

so it seems like not complaining about

15:19

being cold worked out really good for her. She

15:22

was humble, right. I think the point is

15:24

supposed to be that she's like, she's

15:26

so kind and polite that she won't

15:28

even that she won't even complain about

15:30

the cold, maybe because it would be like

15:33

she's out in his domain, and it would be like,

15:35

you know, offensive to complain about the cold

15:37

to Grandfather Frost when you're

15:40

out of It's kind of like going to somebody's house

15:42

and saying it smells bad. That's

15:44

the way I made sense of it, because otherwise I don't

15:47

really know what it is that's so kind about

15:49

saying you're warm when you're not. I think it's

15:51

that she's in his house. In

15:55

the meantime, the wicked stepmother was waiting

15:57

at home for news of the girl's death and

15:59

preparing pancakes for the funeral feast,

16:01

and she said to her husband, old man,

16:03

you had better go out into the fields and find your daughter's

16:06

body and bury her. Just as the

16:08

old man was leaving the house, the little dog

16:10

under the table began to bark, saying, I

16:12

don't know how to do a dog voice? Okay here? Uh?

16:15

Oh the hell you do? You know how to do a

16:17

dog voice? Do

16:19

I do a Scooby Doo voice? Here? Yeah? Your

16:22

daughter shall live. Your daughter

16:24

shall live to be your delight. Her daughter

16:26

shall die this very night. Hold

16:29

your tongue, you foolish beasts. Go to the woman.

16:31

There's a pancake for you, but you must say

16:33

her daughter shall have much silver and gold.

16:36

His daughter is frozen, quite stiff and cold.

16:38

But the doggie ate up the pancake and

16:40

barked, saying, his daughter

16:43

shall wear a crown on her head. Her daughter

16:45

shall die on wood on wed

16:47

And then old woman tried to coax

16:49

the doggie with more pancakes and to terrify

16:52

it with blows, but he barked on, always

16:54

repeating the same words, And suddenly

16:56

the door creaked and flew open. In a

16:59

great heavy chest was pushed in, and behind

17:01

it came the stepdaughter, radiant

17:03

and beautiful in address, all glittering

17:05

with silver and gold. For a moment the

17:07

stepmother's eyes were dazzled. Then

17:09

she called to her husband, old man, yoked

17:11

the horses at once into the sledge, and take

17:13

my daughter into the same field, and leave her

17:16

on the same spot exactly. And so the

17:18

old man took the girl and left her beneath

17:20

the same tree where he had he

17:22

had parted from his daughter. In a few minutes,

17:25

King Frost came past, and looking

17:27

at the girl, he said, are

17:29

you warm, maiden? What a blind

17:31

old fool you must be to ask such a question.

17:33

She answered angrily, can't you see that my hands

17:35

and my feet are nearly frozen? Then King

17:37

Frost sprang to and fro in front

17:40

of her, questioning her and getting only

17:42

rude, rough words in reply, till

17:44

at last he got very angry and cracked

17:47

his fingers and gnashed his teeth and

17:49

froze her to death. But

17:52

in the hut, her mother was waiting for her to

17:54

return, and then she grew impatient.

17:56

She said to her husband, get out the horses,

17:58

old man, and go and fetch her home. And see

18:00

that you are careful not to upset the sledge

18:02

and lose the chest. Is

18:05

the mother becoming irish? I think, yeah,

18:07

she might be. She might be. I mean, as

18:09

we'll discuss, like, it's impossible

18:12

to read these lines without thinking of

18:14

the the actors in this movie,

18:16

and particularly the English dub of those characters.

18:19

And uh yeah, so, and then

18:21

I'm also drifting in my accent here. Okay,

18:23

okay, But then so we got

18:26

a couple more lines. So the dog beneath

18:28

the table began to bark, saying, your

18:31

daughter is frozen, quite stiff and cold,

18:33

and never shall have a chest full of gold.

18:36

Don't tell such wicked lies, scouted the woman.

18:38

There's a cake for you. Now say her

18:40

daughter shall marry a mighty king. But at

18:43

that moment the door flew open, and

18:45

she rushed out to meet her daughter, and as

18:47

she took her frozen body in her arms,

18:49

she too was chilled to death.

18:54

And that's the end. Man, These old fairy

18:57

tales are so mean, yeah

18:59

they this is, as is

19:01

often the case. Yeah, the old tales didn't

19:03

play around they they were.

19:05

They were often rather brutal in ways

19:07

that you might expect a film adaptation

19:10

to then soften things a bit and

19:12

maybe not go so hard not

19:15

people, especially if they're

19:17

not, you know, doing anything particularly evil.

19:20

But even if they are, like Frost is

19:22

just going around just murdering everyone. Um,

19:25

how how are the children going to connect with that? Right?

19:27

So the skeleton of this folk tale absolutely

19:30

appears in the movie. But

19:32

but yeah, like you say, the the

19:34

edges are dulled a little bit, so

19:37

so the the spoiled mean daughter

19:39

is is not frozen to death along

19:41

with her mother. Instead, she's just sort of uh

19:44

made a fool of Yeah,

19:46

yeah, and generally there's just Now

19:48

that we've read through the story, like I, I admired

19:50

the script even more because they found great

19:53

ways to soften the

19:55

thorny nous of the story, like

19:57

instead of the instead of the old man being

20:00

like, well I better, I better do what she says and

20:02

and abandoning his daughter to die in the in

20:04

the in the cold, they do

20:06

an alteration on that where he is

20:08

going to do that, he's driving her out into the wilderness

20:10

to abandon her. But then he has a change of heart

20:13

and says, nope, I'm gonna go back and give her a piece of my

20:15

mind. But but

20:17

but Nostinka is so good, she's

20:19

so good she can't s see her her father

20:21

go back and and and you know,

20:23

and and watch the stepmother unleash hell on

20:26

him for disobeying her. So she

20:28

slips off and goes out into the wilderness

20:30

to die in her own right, she decides

20:32

she's going to freeze to death in the woods because she

20:34

doesn't want to make trouble, right, I

20:37

would say, by the way, you know, I'm a sucker for

20:39

stories that have a moral about being kind

20:41

and stuff. But that's that's a little too kind. I mean,

20:43

I think it's okay. I

20:45

think it's okay to not want to freeze to

20:47

death, even if that's going to create some headaches

20:50

for your dad. Yeah.

20:52

But but like, like you said that, the skeleton of the story

20:55

is there, but then other

20:57

elements are added in to give it, you

20:59

know, that sort of that epic full motion picture

21:01

feel. Baba Yaga is thrown in

21:04

because she's a delightful villain. Um,

21:06

you have a male hero thrown in

21:08

in the form of Ivan, you have

21:11

various other high jinks going on, a little

21:13

bit of a sleeping beauty trope thrown in

21:15

as well. Oh yeah, Morosco has got it all

21:26

all right. Well, we'll come back to the plot here in just a

21:28

minute, but let's take a

21:30

moment to discuss the various

21:33

people involved in this um

21:36

because because you, like me, may not be familiar

21:38

with any of the people that were involved in the making of Morosco.

21:41

I've been watching them for years, but I didn't really know anything about

21:43

them, and it was it was it was really fun to research

21:46

this a little bit the other day. Okay,

21:48

So the director of this film is

21:51

Alexander Rowe. Uh. That's

21:53

often spelled UM r

21:55

O U for in English,

21:58

but you also see it spelled r o w e

22:00

uh. So he was born in nineteen o six died

22:03

in nineteen seventy three, legendary

22:05

Soviet filmmaker of Irish

22:07

and Greek heritage. So his father was

22:09

an Irish engineer working

22:12

in Russia. And

22:13

um and uh and and and uh.

22:15

Apparently I think there's some story about the father

22:18

ended up like leaving the family uh

22:20

in Russia. Uh. At any rate,

22:22

Alexander grew up, you know, as as

22:24

a Russian, as a as a and then and then

22:27

working his way into what would become the Gorky

22:29

Film Studio and just becoming a mainstay

22:31

there. He directed twenty fantasy

22:34

films, mostly based on Russian

22:36

folklore and Russian literature, and

22:39

also some non fantasy films thrown in there

22:41

as well. But this was his, his his thing

22:43

um, and you know certainly that such

22:45

a rich well to draw from. His

22:48

films include such notable works as

22:50

A Wish upon a Pike from nineteen

22:52

thirty eight. This one features Czar

22:55

Gorok and the Princess who

22:57

never smiled. There's That's at Least

22:59

of the Beautiful from nineteen forty. This has the

23:01

Bobba Yaga in it as well as the frog

23:04

Princess. There's the Humpbacked

23:06

Horse in nineteen forty one film that has

23:08

has Van in it. There's Cache

23:11

the Immortal in nineteen forty five film that has

23:13

a caste the Immortal. There's Firewater

23:15

and Brass Pipes from nineteen eight

23:18

that has cost Babba Yaga

23:20

uh Vodiano the water spirit

23:23

as well as apparently some were wolves. There's

23:25

Barbara the Fair with the Silken Hair from nineteen

23:28

seventy which has the Underwater King

23:30

or the Underwater Zar in it, being

23:33

known as Chuto Yudo. And

23:35

then there's The Golden Horns from nineteen

23:37

seventy three, which was I believe his last film

23:40

and I think another director had to had

23:42

to complete it for him. But that is a film

23:44

centered around the Bobba Yaga as well. Well,

23:47

it is no surprise at all that this filmmaker

23:49

has a long running uh

23:52

affair of the heart with with the Witch

23:54

of the Woods, because the Babba Yaga in

23:57

this movie is wonderfully realized.

23:59

She lives in a house that walks around on legs,

24:02

and all of her scenes are just

24:04

pitch perfect. Yeah, all of these films

24:06

feature similar folkloric threads,

24:09

uh you know, because for example, Bobby

24:11

Yagas pops up in four of them, um

24:14

Yvan is in two of them, kas is

24:16

in two of them, and some

24:18

of the same actors pop up in several

24:21

of his films as well. Discuss

24:23

So so basically, the deal seems to be that that

24:25

Row popularized the epic folkloric

24:27

fantasy film in Russia and

24:30

set a standard that

24:32

that that is that was certainly emulated

24:34

by other directors of the time period, but it's also

24:36

still reflected to this day in Russian

24:39

cinema, including the films of

24:41

the Walt Disney Company c I S,

24:43

which produced the live action

24:45

Russian fantasy films The Book

24:48

of Masters in two thousand nine and

24:50

the Lost Warrior trilogy from two

24:52

thousands seventeen through. I believe the third

24:54

film in that saga's coming out in two

24:57

These are films that feature most of the characters

25:00

that I just highlighted, So, you

25:02

know, just a modern retelling of

25:04

these various folkloric stories with

25:07

modern cinematic tools and styles.

25:10

I gotta say, I've never heard of any of these. Um,

25:12

yeah, these are I have not seen

25:14

any of them, but now I

25:17

would like to check out some of them. I looked at

25:19

some trailers and some clips, and

25:21

uh yeah, I'm I'm impressed. I mean, apparently

25:24

you have the likes of Steven Spielberg, who has

25:26

spoken admirally about Row in the past.

25:29

So uh for for those who know,

25:31

uh, this guy was a master.

25:34

Now, as far as the screenwriters go, there are there

25:36

are two credited screen Lighters writers. The first

25:38

one is Nicolay Erdman, who

25:40

lived nineteen hundred through nineteen seventy

25:43

a Russian playwright and screenwriter,

25:45

perhaps best known for the

25:48

suicide Uh, this is a play and

25:50

he turned to cinema when his playwriting career

25:52

ran a foul of Soviet authorities. And

25:55

then there's Michael Volpen who

25:57

lived nineteen o two through a

26:00

screenwriter who frequently worked with Erdman.

26:02

Together they also wrote Rose,

26:05

Firewater and Brass Pipes of

26:07

Open also wrote the nineteen sixty one animated

26:09

film The Key, which apparently

26:11

ran a foul of Soviet sensors due to its criticism

26:14

of social conformity. Right

26:16

now, onto the cast. Let's start at the top

26:19

with the actor who plays

26:21

Morosco, who plays Father Frost.

26:24

This is Alexander Kivyalia,

26:26

who lived nineteen o five through nineteen

26:28

seventy six, a Russian actor

26:30

of stage and screen. He worked with Rowan several

26:32

different films, including Golden Horns and Firewater

26:35

and Brass Pipes, as well as the

26:38

really interesting sounding row film titled

26:40

Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors, which

26:42

apparently involves a mirror world and

26:44

crooked mirrors that brainwash people

26:47

through uh these various subtle

26:49

changes in reality. UM,

26:52

I may have to look that one up. He was also

26:54

in Rose nineteen sixty one The Night

26:56

Before Christmas, based on a

26:59

Nicolay Gogel story. He does

27:01

not play Santa Claus in this in case anyone's

27:03

curious. For anybody wondering, is Father

27:05

Frost Santa Claus, Well, no,

27:08

but there's some significant aesthetic

27:10

overlap. Yeah, yeah, they

27:13

it's enough to where you sometimes see people

27:15

described describe Father Frost

27:17

has they'll quote the Russian Santa Claus,

27:20

which is which is incorrect. But they're

27:22

kind of cut from the same cloth. You know, there are

27:25

similarities once you get into the amorphous

27:28

you know, collective unconscious. Um,

27:30

you know, I guess you could make an argument that they're essentially

27:33

the same being both have long white

27:35

beard, both right around in the sleigh,

27:37

Both are associated with the winter months.

27:40

Both have a scepter that freezes people

27:42

solid upon touching. They

27:45

have both have a big beard though, and and

27:48

sometimes they bring gifts. Well,

27:50

no, he's okay. Father Frost has the scepter, but

27:52

Santa Claus has the flower to disappear if

27:54

you know, well, yes, if you're watching

27:57

um, yeah, you're watching Santa Claus.

28:00

Uh, the well, that's the nineteen sixties movie as

28:02

well. Wasn't it that Santa

28:04

Claus versus the devil? All right,

28:06

the rest of the cast. So you have Nastinka,

28:09

the beautiful, perfect girl, the

28:11

the uh you know, the step

28:14

daughter played by Natalia

28:16

Sack who was born in night,

28:18

still alive as of this recording. A former

28:21

Russian figure skater and ballet dancer.

28:23

She was also in rows, firewater and

28:25

brass pipes. Hard to miss she has

28:28

there's just enormous eyes. Right,

28:30

So not Nastica or Nastia

28:32

corresponds to the good

28:34

sister, the good daughter in the folk

28:37

tale, the one who's who's very nice and polite

28:39

and is treated very harshly by

28:41

her by her hateful stepmother. Now

28:44

let's let's go ahead and talk about the bad

28:46

sister, the step sister. Here. This is

28:48

Mafushka, the step sister, played

28:50

by Ina Churakova born

28:53

nineteen forty three. And uh,

28:55

I have to say that this was the performance that I

28:57

always admired knowing nothing about this

28:59

actor. Like she's tremendous

29:01

in this like just you know this this

29:04

uh snarling, but but at times

29:06

at times kind of vulnerable, um

29:09

uh human being, you know, like like

29:11

she she is an outrageous caricature, but

29:14

at times you feel for her too. Well.

29:16

She's detestable but also pitiable

29:19

in the way that all spoiled children are, because

29:21

you know, like there's nothing more revolting

29:23

than a spoiled brat child, but

29:25

you know that, you know they were made that way, and

29:27

you get to see how her her

29:30

how her mother's sort of abusive doting

29:32

causes her to be the way she is,

29:34

so you feel bad for her. Yeah, and

29:37

you know, given how good this performance is,

29:39

it it probably shouldn't come as a surprise,

29:41

but it might surprise some people to know that. Okay,

29:43

this was only her third screen role, but

29:46

Choakova went on to have this just

29:48

highly successful acting career in Russia

29:50

and is is highly acclaimed, Like she's

29:52

essentially the Russian Meryl Streep,

29:55

Like she's that level of successful. If you if

29:57

you look up lists of of

29:59

like famous Russian UM actresses,

30:03

unless it's you know, some sort of just modern

30:05

list that's not taking in the like the full scope of

30:07

Russian cinema, you may very

30:09

well find her on that list. She

30:12

was born in nineteen forty three, uh

30:14

still active today.

30:16

UM she is. She's married

30:18

to acclaimed Russian director Gleb

30:21

Penvalov and has started several

30:24

of his historical films,

30:26

including three Vassah.

30:29

She's just wonderful in this every moment

30:32

on screen, she's doing something interesting

30:34

now. The character of Ivan, the

30:36

male hero, was played by Edward

30:39

Isotov, who was born in nineteen thirty

30:41

six died in two thousand and three. Tall,

30:43

handsome Russian actor whose career

30:46

lasted throughout the sixties and seventies, but was apparently

30:48

derailed in the early eighties due to some

30:50

manner of financial or real estate scandal.

30:53

I couldn't get the full details on it, but

30:55

he was also in rows Uh,

30:57

firewater and brass Pipes are right.

31:00

Then there's the step mom this is played.

31:02

This part was played by Vera Altaskaya,

31:05

who was born in nineteen nineteen died in

31:07

nineteen seventy eight, another established Russian

31:09

actor and a frequent cast member in Row films.

31:12

In her later career, apparently she found her

31:14

niche playing this this exact

31:17

sort of domineering mom step mom character.

31:19

So apparently this is the

31:21

she. She had a later career based

31:24

on this type of character. Wicked stepmother

31:26

for life, yes all

31:28

right? And then Baba Yaga the witch. Oh,

31:31

this is such a great character and such a great screen

31:33

presence in this film. She is played

31:35

by the actor um

31:38

uh Ge Glory mil Jar

31:41

who lived three through

31:43

nineteen. So this

31:46

this guy was a comedic Russian actor

31:48

who also seems to have specialized

31:50

in playing supernatural folkloric villains.

31:53

He played Baba Yaga five

31:55

times for for Alexander

31:58

Rowe, and he played Kashka

32:00

the Immortal something like four times. He

32:02

also played Judo Uto. He plays

32:04

our U Goroko,

32:07

various devils and demons. So

32:09

if you needed, if you needed somebody to play

32:12

this kind of menacing but also slightly

32:14

comedic villain, uh,

32:16

this was your guy. He he has

32:19

given it his all. I don't want to cheapen

32:21

it by this comparison, but for like modern

32:23

American audiences think like a

32:26

level of commitment to to a

32:28

frantic physical performance, sort of

32:30

like like Jim Carey in the nineties.

32:33

Yeah, yeah, like if in

32:36

like in a sense, he's kind of like, you

32:38

know, a big name monster player, you know, like

32:41

a Boris Karlaf. But imagine if if

32:43

Boris Karlof were merged

32:46

with you know, you know, you know, with

32:48

with one of these just outlandish physical

32:50

comedians. Uh, this is what you might

32:52

have, all right. We also have an interesting

32:54

bandit Chief character who pops up

32:56

in this played by an a

32:58

totally kubat Ski who lived

33:01

nineteen o eight through two thousand and one. Character

33:04

a Russian character actor who often played heavies

33:06

and bandits and kings and frequently

33:09

worked with Alexander Rowe. Uh. He's

33:11

pretty fun in this is not a huge part, but you

33:13

know he has a lot of you know, snarling of

33:16

scenes where you know he's he's

33:18

staring off and and uh off screen

33:20

and looking very suspicious and uh and

33:23

greedy. So it's it's a fun role. He

33:25

has a great line that really sticks in my head

33:27

where in the English dub, after

33:30

Vane has like apparently magically

33:33

thrown all of the bandits clubs up in

33:35

the sky so that they don't fall back down

33:37

until months later, the

33:40

bandit chief just says, that's odd.

33:45

I love it. Yeah, alright, I just

33:47

want more name to mentions, as we do tend

33:49

to to to point out who did the music. Uh.

33:52

It was an individual by the name of Nicolay

33:55

Budashkin who lived nineteen ten through

33:57

night. I don't know much

33:59

about him. But he also did the music on through

34:01

fire water and brass pipes. Uh

34:04

and yeah, I mean the score is delightful in this.

34:06

It's it's, it's, it's beautiful and

34:08

magical. Now.

34:18

I don't really remember this introduction from

34:21

the Mystery Science Theater version. Maybe

34:23

it's in there. But the movie kicks right

34:25

off letting you know it's a fairy

34:27

tale because it begins with with

34:29

a grandmother sort of opening some

34:32

like the wooden windows,

34:34

the wooden shutters of a playhouse, and

34:37

she leans into the window and

34:39

and says the you know, once upon a time

34:41

an old man and an old woman lived in a

34:43

village with their daughters. So it's like you're you're

34:45

being told a a fairy

34:48

tale by your babushka, right, you know,

34:50

before bed or something. Yeah, yeah, this

34:52

this is a great opening. And apparently the

34:54

exact same opening occurs in other Row

34:56

films. Uh with it with I don't

34:58

know if it's the same grandmother type character,

35:01

but a very similar storyteller um

35:04

saying yes, this is a folk tale, let me tell it to

35:06

you. And uh yeah, this was cut from the

35:08

MS T three K version, I'm sure for for time,

35:10

as they frequently did with those films.

35:12

But I also love it because if

35:15

you remove her from the film, there

35:17

aren't really any like nice

35:19

old Russian ladies in the movie. You

35:21

know, it's like mostly the evil step

35:23

mom, a you

35:25

know, a would be mother in law who's

35:28

also kind of scheming, and then

35:30

a matchmaker who, um,

35:33

I don't know. I guess the matchmaker isn't isn't terrible,

35:35

but still she lacks the charm

35:37

of this this grandmotherly storyteller

35:40

who's here to entertain us. I think

35:42

I think Yvonne's mom is you want

35:44

to meet her for a second, But she like gives him.

35:46

She gives him good advice that he doesn't obey

35:49

though he should have, right And she also,

35:51

I mean, she's just like like she's desperately

35:54

like trying to to tell him to to live his

35:56

his his life correctly as he's leaving the

35:58

house. So I don't know, it's it's a very desperate

36:00

scene and not really a warm one. I guess we'll

36:02

give me a nice blind lady later

36:04

on, but but nothing like the grandma here who's

36:06

speaking directly to us. No, but you've got

36:09

to give a shout out to Vaughan's mom she's right

36:11

about everything. He's like, I'm

36:13

running off to cause trouble. I'm

36:15

I'm gonna go rolling through the woods,

36:17

getting into getting in all kinds of mischief. And

36:20

she's like, wait, respect your elders.

36:22

If he'd only listened to her, she

36:24

could have saved him a lot of grief. But isn't that always

36:26

the way? Well, anyway, so you get the introduction

36:29

that she says, you know, she she explains the

36:31

situation, which is similar to the beginning of the original

36:34

folk tale about grandfather Frost.

36:36

You get the two daughters. Uh, Nastya

36:39

was the daughter of the old man, Marfushka

36:41

was the daughter of the old woman, and

36:43

uh. And then you fade to these idyllic

36:46

scenes of rural life. So you've got

36:48

sunrise on a river that's very smooth,

36:50

in an old house deep in the woods,

36:53

and you see the family sleeping inside, or

36:55

at least most of the family, because

36:57

the first character we get to see is Marfushka.

37:00

Again, this is played by by in a chore

37:02

cova. She is sleeping.

37:04

And so there's a thing I was wondering about,

37:06

whether this is a real feature

37:08

of I don't know this time and place. Something

37:10

you would find in these rural Russian houses,

37:12

or if this is saying something about the character, but

37:15

she's like a like a teenager

37:17

sleeping in what appears to be kind of

37:19

a crib, like it's like a wooden box.

37:22

I think that maybe rocks And I wonder if

37:24

that's supposed to be like, oh, she's spoiled like a baby.

37:26

Yeah, I don't know. I guess I always thought it was just,

37:28

yeah, she's kind of a big baby, so of course she's in

37:31

something like a crib. But it's possible that this

37:33

is some sort of traditional box

37:35

bed. I know we have some we

37:37

have some Russian listeners and listeners

37:39

with uh with

37:42

with Russian roots or or or a greater

37:45

knowledge of of Russian customs. Perhaps

37:47

you can chime in on this. Is this something

37:50

that an adult would actually be sleeping in

37:52

or is this just about telling

37:55

us that she's a big baby. Well, I

37:57

think something that has got to be true to the original

38:00

of the Russian setting is the fact that

38:02

she is being bothered by mosquito. Is

38:04

they're they're buzzing around her face, you know,

38:07

I hear the mosquitoes can be really

38:09

rough in in the Russian

38:11

woods and so they're they're buzzing around

38:13

and her her mother wakes up and

38:16

she sees what's going on. Oh

38:18

no, my my poor baby is being bothered by mosquitoes.

38:21

So she wakes up her husband and makes

38:23

him sit at Marfushka's bedside

38:25

to wave a branch over her face to

38:27

keep the mosquitoes away while she's and

38:30

she also gives her a lollipop to

38:33

enjoy while she's sleeping. Is that

38:35

Is that normal or is that just a fairytale thing?

38:37

I don't know. I mean, all all

38:39

babies would love to have a lollipop whilst

38:41

sleeping, but you know, generally parents are not going

38:44

to give it to them. Uh, But

38:46

yeah, I don't know. I can't speak to

38:48

that. But the the interesting thing about

38:50

the lollipop is that, again the MST

38:53

three K version of this, the video quality,

38:55

certainly on versions that lasted after

38:58

the show went away. Initially, the

39:00

video quality is so poor that

39:03

I all I saw was red lollipop. It

39:05

wasn't until I watched a nice HD version

39:07

of it that I saw that the red lollipop is

39:09

in the shape of a rooster, and

39:12

so I I looked into this. So it's like, why why

39:14

is it in the shape of a rooster? Is this a thing? And yes,

39:16

it is indeed a thing. There is this. If something

39:18

is in this film, I guess there's a very good chance

39:20

that it. I mean, it's there for a reason. Um.

39:23

There's a whole history to this. According to the

39:25

website Russia beyond Russian

39:27

lollipops or leadin its uh

39:30

date back to the thirteenth century. Uh.

39:32

The rooster is the tradition. There are other

39:34

molds that are used other animals, but that the

39:37

rooster is the main one, because the

39:39

rooster is a quote magical and regal

39:41

bird in Russian fairy tales, and

39:44

by the nineteenth century it was especially a

39:46

big deal. So they're not always

39:48

red in color. I think this might

39:50

have to do with the use of beat

39:52

sugar, or perhaps then using beat

39:54

sugar and then beat juice to

39:57

to color it. Uh So. But sometimes

39:59

they're more of a of a brown color, and

40:01

sometimes they're more yet more caramel colored

40:03

in nature. But they're still around. You

40:05

can still buy them. You can order

40:07

them online. Um, and they're still

40:10

sold in Russian candy shops. Oh my

40:12

god, what a good Christmas gift getting somebody

40:14

a bunch of mar Fushka lollipops.

40:16

Yeah, I really. After I've learned this, it's like, oh

40:19

man, now I want one. I don't know if I want to sleep

40:21

with it, but you know I want one. You know, I've outgrown

40:23

certain concerns about looking cool. There's

40:26

something, you know, like dignity questions I

40:28

don't really care about. But I will not eat

40:30

the rooster lollipop. That's

40:32

that's a line I will not just in general

40:34

or only at night. Never.

40:39

Well, I'll have to get you and you might change your mind. Okay,

40:42

But anyway, I think we're supposed to get the message.

40:44

Okay, you know they're giving her a lollipop all she's

40:46

sleeping, so I guess Marfushka

40:48

is a spoiled brad even win asleep. But

40:51

then meanwhile we get the mother going into the next room

40:53

to see her stepdaughter Nastia, who

40:55

again corresponds to the good daughter from

40:57

the folk Tail the nice one and

41:00

Uh. Nastia is staying up through

41:02

the night to knit a pair of

41:04

stockings that her stepmother asked her

41:06

to make for Marfushka, and

41:09

when she comes in and finds her hard at

41:11

work, the stepmother is still not satisfied.

41:13

She She's like, I told you to make the stockings,

41:16

but I didn't tell you to click your needles like that.

41:18

You'll wake up, my darling girl. So

41:21

Nastia has sent outside in the cold to finish

41:24

knitting, and the stepmother

41:26

is so mean. She says, the stockings have to be finished

41:28

by the time the rooster crows, and

41:31

she says, otherwise, my precious little girl,

41:33

I will tear your braid off. There's

41:35

a lot of threats of braid violence

41:38

in this movie, yeah, the removal of braids.

41:41

And then, of course it's revealed that the

41:43

step sister does not have an

41:45

actual braid. She has a store bought braid.

41:48

So you know, I guess you know commentary

41:50

on you know which daughter is legitimately

41:54

beautiful and good and which one is artificially

41:56

beautiful and good, which,

41:58

of course is based entirely on hair length.

42:00

We can't respect that enough, right, Yes,

42:03

hair length directly corresponds

42:05

to moral virtue. Yeah,

42:07

but I like, I noticed a little thing. This is also

42:09

in keeping with the fairy tale, at least the version chronicled

42:12

by Andrew Lang, which is that the

42:14

family dog barks at the wicked

42:16

stepmother when she's being mean Dynastia,

42:18

so like the dog is taking nastias

42:21

side, just like in the story the dog

42:23

takes the good daughter's side.

42:25

Back at home, She's like, you know, I'll give you

42:27

a pancake if you say that that the

42:29

good daughter is bad and the bad daughter is good,

42:31

and the dogs like, no, I won't. Yeah,

42:35

that the dog is important in this movie

42:38

as our other animals, Like, they're not just they're

42:40

not just hanging around like they have agency,

42:43

even if the movie didn't go to the

42:45

degree of having them actually speak with

42:48

like dubbed human voices, though some of

42:50

the animals in the movie do speak. Yeah, like do they speak?

42:52

As I was trying to remember just now, I was like, the

42:54

pig speak, does the cat speak? The

42:56

rooster speaks? You remember? Oh, yes,

42:59

that's right, that's I'm gonna ride up. So the sun's

43:01

about to rise and a rooster hops

43:03

up into frame. Remember the stepmother was like,

43:05

Okay, if you don't finish these stockings by the

43:07

time the rooster crows, I'm gonna tear your braid

43:09

off. And then uh,

43:11

Nastya goes and negotiates with the rooster.

43:14

She's like, give me a little time, please, pretty

43:16

rooster. Uh, I guess she's flattering

43:18

him, or no, she's not, probably not flattering

43:21

because she's she's good and honest. So she just

43:23

genuinely thinks the rooster is pretty

43:25

and throws that in there just to be nice, and

43:27

the rooster, actually talking with the

43:29

human voice, says, uh, sorry,

43:31

roosters only obeyed the sun. So you'll

43:34

have to go. You have to you gotta talk to my boss.

43:36

You gotta you gotta go deal with the rosy

43:38

finger Dawn. So she goes

43:40

to plead with rosy Finger Dawn and

43:43

she so she goes up on this hillside

43:45

with these trees behind her, and it's like

43:47

this little crest crest of grassy

43:50

hill that rises up by the river, and

43:52

she faces the sun and pleads

43:54

with it, and apparently the sun

43:57

is so moved by pity for her it sinks

43:59

back down over the horizon and gives her

44:01

time to finish the stockings. And

44:04

I guess I think this was the first moment

44:06

in the movie where I was like, huh, Like,

44:08

so far, it's been interesting and funny,

44:10

but this scene is actually quite beautiful. Yeah,

44:13

yeah, And I have to admit

44:15

when we recorded our

44:17

our current I guess the current series

44:19

on uh time travel fiction. I

44:21

kept thinking of this like this in some

44:24

ways is kind of a folkloric time

44:26

travel into the past. That the literal

44:29

turning back of the clock, but

44:31

not the clock on the wall, but the clock,

44:33

the celestial clock, the great celestial

44:36

clock of the the the the actual movement

44:39

of the sun. It's like Joshua stilling

44:41

the sun in the sky so he could finish his

44:43

battle. Yeah, and it works.

44:46

So so it works. She she has time

44:48

to finish the stockings before the rooster crows.

44:50

But you know what, the wicked stepmother is

44:52

just still not impressed. She comes out and she's

44:54

like, so you did it on time while you wicked

44:56

little viper, you wicked little witch. I'll

44:59

give you much hard her work next time. Uh.

45:02

You know which is relatable dynamic

45:04

to a lot of people. Maybe I'm sure at some point

45:06

in your life everybody might have had the experience

45:09

of trying really hard, you know, working

45:11

hard to complete some task that seemed

45:13

impossible, only to

45:15

discover that doing so is maybe

45:17

not really rewarded or appreciated. Instead

45:19

makes people expect even more of you in the future.

45:22

Maybe that's more often a work thing than

45:25

than a family thing. I don't know, well, I've encountered

45:27

shades of it when in Dungeons and Dragons, like

45:29

when the dungeon master gives

45:31

you an encounter and things go a little bit too easy.

45:34

Yeah, they just sort of like ad hawc

45:36

make up another one to punish

45:38

you, Yeah, or like next time, I don't have to make it

45:40

harder. It's okay.

45:43

That went with Sometimes we need a cake walk,

45:45

sometimes we need to wear natural twenty. Why

45:47

you wicked Little Vipers? Yes exactly.

45:52

But as a reward, of course, Yeah, she's going to get more

45:54

chores, stuff like watering random

45:57

stumps and so forth. Yes, yeah

45:59

exactly. So she's sent off with this big list of

46:01

other chores to do around the farm. Uh.

46:04

And then we cut to meeting one of our other main

46:06

characters. I guess our two main characters are Nastia

46:08

and then this new character, Yvonne, And

46:11

so we see him coming out of his house. We learned

46:13

he's from another village nearby, and

46:16

immediately we get the vibe about

46:18

Yvonne that he is young and strong,

46:21

but proud and vain, And

46:24

so he walks out of his house sort of you know, chest

46:26

puffed out looking, looking into

46:28

a handheld mirror and and just really

46:31

enjoying himself, enjoying his own reflection.

46:34

And uh, like we were talking about a minute ago, we see

46:36

his his mother comes out behind him, and she really

46:38

worries for him. As as he's leaving the

46:40

house, she implores him not to

46:42

forget her. So it's as if he's just

46:44

going off to maybe never return, who

46:47

knows. Uh. And she tells him that

46:49

he should should not harm the weak and that

46:51

he should respect his elders. Yeah,

46:54

and he yeah, he is a

46:56

character cature of

46:58

of of arrogance and

47:00

and and beauty. But also, I mean the thing

47:02

about Vane, and again it's my understanding

47:04

that they are sort of different versions of Vane that you encounter

47:07

in the stories. Like he has all

47:09

the tools to back to back it up, like

47:11

he is a beautiful man. Uh.

47:14

He he does have like almost

47:16

godlike powers. He is he's like

47:18

a Russian Hercules um

47:21

uh. And he's also he's he's

47:23

he has a is a great mind. He's

47:25

he's able to trick people out of

47:27

hurting him without necessarily getting into a physical

47:29

battle with him. But he is just crushing

47:32

Lee Vain right. I mean, I think it

47:34

picks up on a folk tale theme that I find

47:37

interesting. Many folk tales concern

47:39

concerned characters who are themselves

47:42

vulnerable to some more powerful

47:45

uh threat within the story of

47:47

monster or a bear and animal of bandit

47:50

or something um. But there's another

47:52

type of folk tale that is about the reckless

47:54

arrogance of the strong young man. It's

47:57

not that he's vulnerable, it's

47:59

that his that that his strength

48:01

and his freedom make him a

48:03

danger to himself and others right

48:06

right, and he he can't even though he has

48:08

all the tools to be a true hero,

48:10

He's not going to be one until he learns

48:13

like the right path in life and and

48:15

and actually starts um that, you

48:17

know, acting on the true values

48:19

of of moral life. But as soon

48:22

as we see Vans setting out from his house

48:24

to to go on his wanderings, a

48:26

song and dancing begins, and I

48:28

just I also don't know if I remember

48:30

this song and dancing from the Mystery Science

48:32

Theater, but I loved it. It's it's sort of like

48:35

Yvonne's w W E entrance music.

48:38

Uh. The song is not translated

48:40

in the dub so I truly don't know

48:42

what they were singing about, but I'm guessing

48:45

it's about how everybody,

48:47

including Yvonne, thinks Yvonne is really

48:49

great. It seems

48:51

that way. And yeah, this is definitely a scene that was not in

48:53

the MST three K cut. Uh.

48:56

So it's it's it's it's kind of like this delightful

48:58

uh bonus you get

49:00

from watching it. You know, you get to watch all these scenes you've

49:03

you've seen a million times transformed

49:05

into something beautiful, and then occasionally all new

49:08

scenes. But this leads into iv

49:10

ongoing singing and a tramping through

49:13

the forests in the hills, and it's just a really

49:15

excellent musical scene. The song is

49:17

good. Again, it's not dubed,

49:20

so I don't know what it's about, but I assume once

49:22

it's von by himself in the woods

49:24

singing, it's just, you know, I'm awesome, I'm the

49:26

best. I'm going to sing about myself. And

49:29

then we go straight into the bandit scene,

49:31

which I did remember from

49:33

the from the other version, and the

49:35

bandit scene is a classic.

49:37

It's how would we describe this one?

49:39

Do you want to take it? Oh? Well,

49:41

it's just this band of really

49:44

like watching this. It's it's easy to

49:46

imagine that they're not even humans, but there's some

49:48

sort of dwarves or trolls or

49:50

something or gnomes, because

49:52

it's just a bunch of very rugged looking,

49:55

mostly bearded men and mismatched

49:57

garments setting around a campfire. And

50:00

they're, yeah, they're plucking the petals off of daisies.

50:03

Uh, and they're and they're they're trying to

50:05

decide, they're trying to use the daisies way to decide

50:07

how they're gonna how they're gonna go about their day,

50:10

chanting we will rob them, we

50:13

won't rob them, we will eat

50:15

them, we won't eat them,

50:17

etcetera. But the next one is

50:19

we will beat them, we will be beaten.

50:22

So what happens if they pick we will be beaten?

50:24

They just still get beaten. I don't think I never

50:27

really noticed that they were saying that part. Yeah,

50:30

and the some of the some of the bandits are

50:32

like up in the trees as lookout. So

50:34

I love the set up here, but of course

50:37

that we're gonna have a clash of the strong

50:39

against the strong. Yvonne comes along

50:41

whistling his theme song, uh,

50:43

still doing the tune of his entrance

50:46

music, and the Bandits come

50:48

up to him and they say, hey, you're captured. Now

50:50

we're going to rob you. I think that's literally

50:52

a quote, um, and so

50:54

he says, all right, then robbed me and he drops

50:57

his satchel, which I guess they would

50:59

assume has his money in it, and they

51:01

start fighting over his satchel, and in doing

51:03

so, they dropped their clubs, and then

51:05

Van sets to grabbing the clubs

51:08

and chucking them way up in the air. And

51:10

then when when they're when they figure out

51:13

what's going on, they're like, hey, what do you do with our clubs?

51:15

And he's like, well, I threw them up in the sky and they'll

51:17

come down next winter. Okay,

51:20

yeah, it's great. I mean, the Bandits are fearsome

51:23

but but not the smartest, and

51:26

Van is easily able to to outsmart

51:28

them without even really having to fight them. So

51:31

moving along, Van just goes about

51:33

his business and then the narrator comes

51:35

in. I love that there were just a few moments where

51:37

a narrator suddenly talks. There's not much

51:39

narration in the movie, but every now and then you get

51:42

like a sentence or two, and it's kind

51:44

of jarring. Because it's like, whoa where did

51:46

that come from? But the narrator

51:48

says, how long did our young hero Yvonne

51:50

wander over hill and dale? Frankly, we have

51:52

no idea. And I

51:55

was laughing when I saw that, because I was

51:57

like, who is we? Is this like

51:59

the gods speaking like you know in Genesis?

52:01

Let us make man in our own image?

52:04

Anyway, So the narrator

52:07

says, the fact remains that Ivan eventually reached

52:09

far away in unknown lands, and

52:12

here is where we get another classic scene.

52:14

I think we talked about this scene a little

52:16

bit in our Mushroom Foraging episode, but

52:19

this is the chase scene between yvon and

52:21

the old man Mushroom or Grandfather Mushroom.

52:24

So Van meets this old man who

52:26

wears a hat that looks like a mushroom

52:29

cap, and uh he he keeps

52:31

disappearing and reappearing, and

52:34

Von goes up to him and says, are you a

52:36

sorcerer, granddaddy? And uh

52:39

he says, I dabble in sorcery a little,

52:41

but the truth is that I get bored. And

52:44

what does that mean? Does he get bored? Well? Grandfather

52:47

Mushroom wants Yvan to play hide and seek

52:49

with him. Uh so, so they work

52:51

out a deal. If von can catch Grandfather

52:53

Mushroom, he'll he will receive a

52:55

well bent bow and some straight

52:58

arrows. But it

53:00

is hard to catch Grandfather Mushroom because he has

53:02

the power to disappear and teleport, So this

53:04

does not really seem fair. So

53:07

Von loses, but because he admits

53:09

to losing, the old man gives him the bow

53:11

and arrows anyway. But

53:13

in keeping with the themes of the original

53:15

folk tale, here's what so Van is not

53:18

in the classic Grandfather

53:20

Frost, at least the version chronicled by

53:22

Andrew Lange, but the same

53:24

rules apply. So he has met a magical old

53:27

man in the woods and he is not

53:29

courteous to him. He forgets to say

53:31

thank you for the bow, and he just

53:33

sort of he just sort of was like, Okay,

53:36

I'm gonna go about I'm gonna go about my

53:38

business. And the old man is like, hey, aren't

53:40

you gonna say thank you and bow to me? Bow

53:42

your head, and Van says, those

53:45

who bow run the risk of losing their

53:47

head. The bear will bow before

53:49

you if you like, but not Yvonne. And

53:52

this this is bad news. So so Grandfather

53:55

mushroom is like, then, so be it. Things will

53:57

come to pass as you say. The bear will bow

53:59

before me onto the ground, but it is your

54:01

back that will bend. So here

54:03

we get the again, always be polite to old

54:06

magical people in the woods. But

54:16

eventually we got to have our our two protagonists

54:18

or two plot lines collide. Right. So,

54:21

so Van comes across a carving

54:23

on a rock that reads, find a

54:25

feather in the fields and throw it to the winds,

54:27

and if you follow that feather, you will find your destiny.

54:31

So he has a uh, somewhat

54:34

aggressive way of finding a feather in

54:36

the fields. He shoots a bird with an arrow and

54:39

then picks a feather off of it throws it.

54:41

It floats all over all over the

54:43

place, and he follows it and eventually it

54:46

lands at a riverside where

54:48

he finds Nastia. She is they're

54:50

drawing water from the river. She's got

54:52

her loyal buddy dog at the side, and

54:54

she's singing this melancholy song, and

54:57

she is pouring water over a

54:59

dead stump, and

55:02

I Vaughn sees her falls in love at

55:04

first sight, and he walks up to talk.

55:07

She is, of course, hard at work, watering the old

55:09

stump. She says she's going to water

55:11

it until flowers bloom out of it, something

55:13

her stepmother told her to do, and

55:15

I Vaughn's like, that's crazy. She she must

55:18

she must be very mean to you. But Nastia

55:20

does not complain. She's like, oh, no, it's fine,

55:22

and you know I'll do it. And so Van,

55:25

uh, I don't think there's really any

55:27

lead up to this. He's just like, hey, will

55:29

you marry me? So he's being

55:32

very smooth, and she is like, I do not think

55:34

we would make a good couple. And he

55:36

wants to know why, and she says, well, it's because

55:38

you're a braggert and I am not, and

55:41

I like that. His response is, well, I'm not

55:43

a braggert because I'm actually very good at

55:45

everything, so he explains, So I guess

55:48

it's not bragging if it's true. So

55:50

he says he's a good fighter, he's a good

55:52

fisherman, he's a great dancer, and

55:54

he's a great hunter. And then he

55:56

decides to show off how good he is

55:58

at hunting by pulling out his bow

56:01

and he says he's going to shoot a bear on the other

56:03

side of the river. And Nastia

56:06

greatly opposes this. She says, no, she

56:08

has cubs and she tries to stop him,

56:10

so she calls out to her dog, who

56:12

barks, and this scares the bears and they run

56:14

off, and then Nastia throws a bucket

56:16

over Van's head. And then when

56:18

the bucket comes off, the movie kicks

56:21

into high gear because oops,

56:23

here we get Grandfather mushroom magic. And

56:26

now Yvonne has a bear head and he

56:28

sounds like Zoidberg. Yeah,

56:30

I guess he does a bit, but yeah,

56:32

it has this fabulous bear head that, um,

56:35

I think it's actually well crafted,

56:37

you know, I mean within the context of the of

56:39

the film and the times. Uh, you know,

56:41

it looks kind of terrifying

56:44

but also kind of alive. Yeah, it's

56:46

a very creepy looking also sometimes

56:48

funny looking. And and his voice

56:50

has changed. She no longer just sounds like Yvonne.

56:52

He He's like, whoa, what has

56:55

happened to me? And

56:57

uh, when he realizes he has a bear head,

56:59

he thinks that Nastia did it

57:01

to him. He thinks that she gave doesn't

57:04

he I think he thinks she gave her

57:06

head. Yeah, okay, yeah, because he starts

57:09

like I curse you forever, you witch,

57:12

um, and he runs off and

57:14

and is freaking out. This also looks very

57:16

funny because he's just running between the trees sort

57:19

of swinging his arms around and moaning,

57:21

and Nastia is very sad and her

57:24

tears fall in the river, and for some reason

57:26

this makes flowers bloom out of the dead

57:28

stump that she was watering. Yeah. Yeah,

57:30

and I think this is where we also have just a very beautiful,

57:33

lengthy scene that I think was

57:35

cut from the MST version where

57:38

we just see this wonderful reflection in the water

57:41

and you know, she's having this emotional moment

57:43

and it's it's like again one of those where

57:45

you just you just admire the

57:47

look of the film. Oh yeah, you're very right.

57:50

I mean, so there it is genuinely

57:52

a sort of sad moment here, But

57:55

then it cuts back to being kind of funny because then

57:57

we see Van just like roaming all over

57:59

the place, growling and moaning and feeling

58:02

really sorry for himself. Um,

58:04

and he somehow he gets back to grandfather

58:07

Mushroom and he's like, I gotta

58:09

know how to get this get this head, you know,

58:11

bare head off of me. He begs

58:13

him to teach him what he can do to become a man again,

58:16

and Grandfather Mushroom says, you've

58:18

never done a good deed, and then Barehead

58:21

Avanes runs with it. So he's like, oh, so

58:23

I must do a good deed and then I'll return to normal.

58:25

And Grandfather Mushroom is trying to

58:27

protest. He's like, no, it isn't that simple, but

58:29

Barehead is always he's already running

58:31

off to get it done. So

58:34

it's still that that youthful sort of prideful,

58:36

foolhardiness. He's not going to even read

58:38

the full instructions. Yeah, And and

58:41

from here we get kind of a montage with scene

58:43

right where he's running up to people, random folks

58:45

and just like he's saying, what can I do to help

58:47

you? But he's a bear monster, so

58:49

he's terrifying people and they're just running

58:51

away from it. Right, Yeah, I mean

58:54

it's it's kind only Frankenstein, right,

58:56

Mary Chell. You know he he uh,

58:59

the creature just wants friends,

59:01

but but he's scary looking, so people are

59:03

going to run away. Oh, it is very in

59:05

fact, it mirrors Frankenstein in in another

59:08

way. They we'll get to in a second. Now cutting back

59:10

to the house where where Nastia

59:12

and Marfushka live, there is a really

59:14

funny scene leading up to I guess it's supposed

59:16

to be a matchmaking scene where a

59:18

suitor and his parents come to the house and

59:21

uh, they're trying to set up Marfushka with

59:23

this with this marriage bile bachelor,

59:26

and so they're getting her ready for that,

59:28

putting all this makeup on her, but it looks

59:30

like clown makeup. And she's wearing this extremely

59:32

colorful outfit with a with a

59:35

red and yellow crown, and it's

59:38

the colors look great. And again this is

59:40

one reason that it really is worth watching the

59:42

good HD version. But also I thought

59:44

the scene is very funny because like, the bachelor

59:47

is this super dopey looking dude.

59:49

He he slightly has a bit of

59:52

um the energy of the guy

59:54

in the who plays um microft

59:57

homes in the BBC version of Sherlock,

1:00:01

but like DOPEI er with long flat

1:00:03

hair and uh, and so

1:00:05

there's a scene so they're trying to

1:00:07

the parents are trying to get him

1:00:10

to him and his parents to agree

1:00:12

to marry Marfushka. But

1:00:15

everything really goes wrong. Somehow she ends

1:00:18

up falling into the lake and then her

1:00:20

fake braid comes off and

1:00:22

it just it just all goes to hell and

1:00:24

and the other people are making fun of her,

1:00:26

and so the stepmother is really mad and

1:00:29

uh. And then the worst thing of all

1:00:31

is that the suitor dude is

1:00:33

like, hey, what if I married Nastia instead?

1:00:36

And that just makes the stepmother go like

1:00:38

ballistic. Oh. And then eventually,

1:00:41

after after a long interlude,

1:00:43

Von does get his his original head back,

1:00:45

and I think it's because he picks up

1:00:47

a stick thinking it belonged to

1:00:50

an old woman that he helped carry

1:00:52

back to her home over a mountain,

1:00:54

and he's like, oh, this is her stick. I better

1:00:56

take it back to her, And for some reason that's the thing

1:00:58

that does it. Then Grandfather Mushrooms

1:01:01

like, okay, you deserve a human head now,

1:01:03

yeah, and an old blind woman. So it kind

1:01:05

of mirrors Frankenstein in that respect

1:01:08

that he ends up. Initially, he's

1:01:11

he ends up helping her by carrying her home,

1:01:14

but it's but it's seeing her stick

1:01:16

and thinking, oh, she needs that stick. I need

1:01:18

to get that back to her. So it's almost like, I

1:01:20

mean, this is something that the MST three k

1:01:23

Riff had fun with, you know, the idea that it's

1:01:25

like he didn't actually do anything nice, he just

1:01:27

thought about doing something nice and

1:01:29

and that was enough. But if

1:01:32

I'm going to re into it more, I feel like

1:01:34

it's the idea that

1:01:37

that he was doing it without any kind

1:01:39

of a scheme behind

1:01:41

it. You know, he he wasn't helping

1:01:43

her because it would help him. He

1:01:45

was just doing it as a reflex, you know it.

1:01:48

It's like kindness was no longer something

1:01:50

that he had to force himself to do. He

1:01:52

could do it instinctually. Oh well, that

1:01:55

makes more sense. Okay, I I can accept

1:01:57

that. But yeah, when it does come down to it is very

1:01:59

funny to point out that

1:02:01

that he just thought about doing it and he

1:02:03

gets rewarded for it. And uh, I

1:02:05

don't know. I think sometimes people do sort

1:02:07

of work that way, like they maybe congratulate

1:02:10

themselves a little too much, not for actually

1:02:12

doing anything good, but for becoming

1:02:14

convinced that they would do something good

1:02:16

if given the opportunity. Yeah,

1:02:19

I think we've I think we've we've looked in some studies

1:02:21

on that. For the core stuff to blow

1:02:23

your mind episodes. Okay, well, here sort

1:02:25

of we hit the transition point because

1:02:27

we skip ahead in time, so

1:02:29

we we we skip ahead to winter. Previously,

1:02:32

I don't know, I guess this was supposed to be in summer

1:02:34

before. Uh, and and now we go

1:02:36

to winter, and here's where we sort of really

1:02:39

get into the meat of the original folk tale.

1:02:41

I also think at this point we might we might

1:02:43

skip over some things and describe in less

1:02:45

detail. But there there is so much wonderful

1:02:47

stuff and magical characters in the second half

1:02:49

of the movie too, because here's where we're gonna get Bobba

1:02:52

Yaga and and Grandfather Frost.

1:02:55

So the second part begins

1:02:57

with the premise of the grandfather

1:02:59

for a story, which is that the old

1:03:01

man is taking Nastia out into

1:03:04

the out into the frozen woods

1:03:06

to die because presumably because

1:03:08

suitors keep wanting to marry her instead

1:03:10

of Marfushka, and stepmother

1:03:13

is is tired of this, so she's like, an old

1:03:15

man, you will kill your daughter for me? And

1:03:18

uh, he's really broken up about it, but he's

1:03:20

doing it, like he's taken her out there on the sled.

1:03:23

But then he while he's out there, he's like, no,

1:03:25

no, I won't and he tries to turn the sled

1:03:27

around to take her back home, but like

1:03:30

we talked about earlier, Nastia apparently

1:03:32

doesn't want to cause trouble for her father, so

1:03:34

she just hops out of the sled. So

1:03:37

I guess, so as not to be a burden. She's

1:03:39

just like, it's all right, dad, I'll just die

1:03:41

of exposure. I don't want you to have a rough afternoon.

1:03:44

I'll say again that is pathological kindness,

1:03:47

that there's no reason to be that nice.

1:03:50

But now, also in the same in the same time

1:03:52

period and the dead of winter, we find Yvonne

1:03:54

out wandering the woods and what he's trying

1:03:57

to find Nastia again. He's like, hey, I've

1:03:59

got a human head again. I'm a better man.

1:04:01

I'm not so selfish in vain now I

1:04:03

am. I am a more suitable

1:04:06

bachelor who who could marry Nastia

1:04:09

because now she'll see I'm actually a good person.

1:04:12

So he's out trying to find her, and

1:04:14

he comes across the cabin of

1:04:16

the Witch of of Bobby Yaga, which

1:04:19

is up on legs, I think, as it is

1:04:21

often depicted in these stories,

1:04:23

and there's this great scene where

1:04:26

they're they're like where he and

1:04:28

the witch are both trying to order the house which

1:04:31

direction to face. Yeah, that's

1:04:33

that's a wonderful scene. And and this whole

1:04:35

sequence is just great with with all the costumes

1:04:38

and and the sets and everything. So yeah,

1:04:39

she gets a bunch of trees

1:04:42

to attack Yvonne and bring him inside

1:04:44

because she wants to eat him. Uh,

1:04:46

and she's going to load him into the oven to cook

1:04:48

him. But he tricks her in classic

1:04:51

fairy tale style. He's like, oh,

1:04:53

hey, you're you want me to sit on the shovel so

1:04:55

you can put me into the oven. But I've never sat on

1:04:57

a shovel before. You gotta show me how. She's

1:05:00

like the youth of today, we're not taught anything.

1:05:03

She's going to demonstrate it. So

1:05:06

she gets on the shovel and and he shoves

1:05:08

her into the oven. And then she's like, oh, get me out,

1:05:10

So he lets her out. But then they're

1:05:12

negotiating. He's trying to

1:05:14

get her magical help to find Nastia.

1:05:17

The The interior of Bobby Iaga's hut

1:05:19

is fabulous because it looks like Mario

1:05:21

Baba was the end. It was the interior

1:05:23

right here, Yes, blue and purple

1:05:26

light everywhere fog. It's

1:05:28

full of animals. They're owls, pigs,

1:05:31

cats, spider webs. I

1:05:34

think some of the snakes other things I'm

1:05:36

probably not even remembering. Uh.

1:05:38

And then meanwhile, so while Yvonne is

1:05:40

encountering this magical being, uh,

1:05:43

Nastia is encountering Grandfather Frost,

1:05:45

and we get basically

1:05:47

the same interaction that they have in the folk

1:05:50

tale. So he's like, are you warm? And she

1:05:52

says yes, even though she's obviously freezing,

1:05:54

and he's like, uh, you know, you're a very nice

1:05:56

girl. Uh,

1:05:58

because she you know, she's gonna talk smack

1:06:01

about how cold his forest is. And

1:06:03

then he offers her his coat, but

1:06:05

she's like, what about you, won't you be cold?

1:06:07

But of course he's you know, he's Father Frost. He's

1:06:09

not going to be cold. So it goes exactly

1:06:14

this is this is this is a fashion

1:06:16

coat. Um. So, just as

1:06:18

she's about to freeze to death, father Frost

1:06:20

is like, oh, she needs help, So he covers her up

1:06:22

in his warm coat, takes her away in his sleigh,

1:06:25

and they go to his house which looks kind of

1:06:27

like a church. Yeah, yeah, it's

1:06:29

it's it's it's it's another beautiful structure

1:06:32

inside and out. Inside especially, it's

1:06:34

just this this blue crystal

1:06:36

palace with you know again,

1:06:38

I'm kind of reminded of of Mario

1:06:40

Bava films, except it's

1:06:42

it's as if Mario Bava made

1:06:44

a fairytale movie for children instead of

1:06:47

you know, some sort of thriller.

1:06:49

Right. Well, there there is something quite deadly

1:06:52

within the house though, because Father Frost

1:06:54

he leaves his scepter in there, and wouldn't

1:06:56

you know it, uh, Nastya's

1:06:59

Nastya's curiosity gets the better of her because

1:07:01

she's like, what's the deal with the scepter? She goes to check

1:07:03

it out, touches it, and it

1:07:06

freezes her solid. She's in a chunk

1:07:08

of ice. We we learned from Father

1:07:10

Frost that that whoever touches the scepter will

1:07:12

never wake again. And he comes

1:07:15

back and finds her frozen like that, and he really

1:07:17

beats himself up about it. He's like, you knit with you,

1:07:19

donkey, you didn't watch over her. Meanwhile,

1:07:22

somehow the Witch

1:07:24

sends van off Um

1:07:27

chasing after some kind of object.

1:07:29

I think it's a sheep skin or something that will allegedly

1:07:32

lead him to Nastia or

1:07:34

a pig sled. Maybe that's the

1:07:36

pig is that lives in her hut is transformed

1:07:38

into a pig sled, a magical

1:07:40

sled. It will take him where he needs to go. Uh.

1:07:43

And she when she's alone, she has these

1:07:45

scenes with like a cat and an owl and a snake

1:07:47

where she's just lamenting that she

1:07:49

did not get to cannibalize Yvonne. She

1:07:51

really wants to eat him. I remember the cat

1:07:54

was doing her bidding by helping

1:07:56

to engineer the moment where she touches the scepter

1:07:58

and it's frozen. That's right. Yeah.

1:08:01

But eventually Ivan meets Nastia's

1:08:03

loyal dog, are you know her buddy dog from

1:08:05

way back in the beginning, and and the dog.

1:08:08

I like this movie because this is a movie that appreciates

1:08:11

the quality of a good dog, and

1:08:14

the dog is a good friend. The dog leads

1:08:16

him to father Frost's house and

1:08:18

when he gets there, if An's love wakes

1:08:20

her up and defrosts her basically,

1:08:24

Oh and then, uh, what does the

1:08:26

exchange they have? It's like she gets defrosted

1:08:29

and he's there with his head back to normal, and

1:08:31

she says something like um,

1:08:33

she she says well, she gives him the I

1:08:36

guess it's the diminutive form of his Evenushka.

1:08:38

She says, Evenushka, how nice you

1:08:41

are? Now I like you better. And

1:08:44

then he he brags now that he does

1:08:46

good deeds all the time, and she seems to

1:08:48

accept this, and then we

1:08:51

we get sort of a happy ending. But the funny thing

1:08:53

is the movie is not over yet, so you

1:08:55

would expect that this is you know, the music

1:08:57

kicks in and we go to credits, um,

1:09:00

but it's not quite there yet that we do see the happy

1:09:02

ending. Uh. Nastia and Ivonne

1:09:04

arrived back at the family home in a regal

1:09:07

sleigh. They're dressed like royalty

1:09:09

with a box full of gems, so it

1:09:11

seems like they're married and they're happy and

1:09:13

they're rich. And Marfushka

1:09:16

is furious. She keeps saying, I want stones

1:09:19

so um

1:09:21

so much like the fairy tale. Her mother demands

1:09:24

that the old man take Marfushka out into the forest

1:09:26

as well, so that the same thing can happen to her,

1:09:28

because from their point of view, it's like, well, okay,

1:09:31

daughter was left in the forest, came back,

1:09:33

uh, married, happy and rich. So

1:09:36

you know, we just assume the same will happen to the other daughter.

1:09:38

But when father Frost comes across her, she

1:09:40

basically beats him up. I think she actually

1:09:43

hits him or something. Yeah, yeah,

1:09:45

she's she's abusive and awful

1:09:47

to to Frost. Uh And

1:09:50

in the original folklore like he freezes her

1:09:52

to death for it. But in this we get a you know,

1:09:54

we get a sanitized version of that. Right,

1:09:56

So instead of him him killing her

1:09:58

and the stepmother, Marfush is sent back

1:10:00

home in uh not with

1:10:03

a husband or not like royalty

1:10:05

in the sleigh with a handsome husband, pulled

1:10:07

by white horses and a box full of jewels. Instead

1:10:10

she is by herself on a sled pulled

1:10:12

by pigs, with a box full of crows. Yes,

1:10:15

And there's also a great sort of epilogue

1:10:18

scene where Van and Nasti are are

1:10:20

riding off together and they get attacked

1:10:22

by the bandits from earlier

1:10:24

in the movie at the behest of the Witch the

1:10:26

way. Yeah, this is kind of our final battle.

1:10:29

So she's rallied the bandits, And there's there's

1:10:31

a great scene where she comes flying in um

1:10:34

in her in her mortar, which

1:10:36

is which is her traditional means

1:10:38

of flying about and it reminded me so much

1:10:40

of an illustration from the Enchanted World's

1:10:43

book. Uh it was this is this

1:10:45

really bright illustration by Ivan

1:10:48

Bilibbin from I believe nineteen hundred

1:10:50

um. It was in the book on

1:10:53

Witches and Wizards. But you can also

1:10:55

see this image if you just go to the Wikipedia page

1:10:57

on Boba Yaga. It's like the top

1:11:00

image and it's it's really cool. So,

1:11:02

yeah, she's coming in. She's bribed the

1:11:04

bandits, she's organizing them.

1:11:06

So yeah, now you have the worst thing you have the Bobby.

1:11:08

You have Bobby Yaga committed to bringing

1:11:11

down Yvonne and Nostinka,

1:11:14

and she has convinced all of these bandits

1:11:16

to work with her. The bandits aren't very smart, but

1:11:18

now they have a general telling them what to do,

1:11:21

right, And she I think she still wants

1:11:23

to eat von right, like she's like, he looked

1:11:25

so tasty. Yeah, yeah,

1:11:28

she feels cheated out of that meal. So she's gonna

1:11:30

she's gonna get it right. So so

1:11:32

the bandits attack, Nastia gets

1:11:34

tied up. The bandits are beating up Yvonne.

1:11:37

But then we get uh to save the

1:11:39

day. We get a couple of things. First of all, the loyal

1:11:41

dog unties Nastia

1:11:43

from the tree, and then the bandits are

1:11:45

knocked out by their own clubs. We get a call back

1:11:47

from earlier when when Yvonne threw all the clubs

1:11:50

up in the air. Yeah, I believe

1:11:52

the riff and they miss d three K version is it's raining

1:11:54

cinematic payoff, which I

1:11:56

love. I love that riff and I think

1:11:59

about it in anytimes something like this happens

1:12:01

in a movie. And then I guess we get the epilogue

1:12:03

to the epilogue, which is like we see our

1:12:06

our Nastia Van at their wedding

1:12:08

here or at some kind of celebration. They're in

1:12:10

a they're in a house with a bunch of

1:12:12

people gathered for a feast, and it's like the

1:12:14

most colorful scene I have ever

1:12:16

witnessed. The colors are just like

1:12:19

violent. Yes, it is absolutely

1:12:21

beautiful, just faberge egg pastel

1:12:24

explosions. It's it's gorgeous.

1:12:26

And they're on the table. You see bowls

1:12:29

of food, apples, there's a rooster bowl.

1:12:32

Um, everybody's here. And it's a

1:12:34

great shot too, because we begin it they're into the table

1:12:36

and then we we we we pull

1:12:39

back. Uh, you know, we

1:12:40

we're moving down the table, down

1:12:42

this feast table. We feel like we're a part of the

1:12:44

feast, right. Yeah. So

1:12:46

so you know what, this is a wonderful

1:12:49

holiday film. This is It does

1:12:51

make for great comedic fodder on on MST.

1:12:54

But this is also just a really

1:12:56

gorgeous, creative and fun movie.

1:12:58

I I give it to and I was a tend talking

1:13:00

roosters. Yeah.

1:13:03

Like most of the best MST three K films,

1:13:05

it stands on its own without the

1:13:08

riff. The riff is not necessary to enjoy it, uh

1:13:10

in my opinion, so uh,

1:13:13

I recommend everybody consider giving it a go, especially

1:13:15

if you're a fan of the episode. You'll still love it. You've

1:13:17

probably seen the Rift version enough

1:13:19

that you've memorized all the good riffs,

1:13:22

so you can just think them or say them

1:13:25

while you're watching. Pretend they're yours. Yeah,

1:13:27

yeah, pretended, pretend their years um

1:13:29

and Lucky for you, you can buy or rent

1:13:31

this digitally on a number of platforms, including

1:13:34

Amazon Prime, where I think there are like two different

1:13:36

versions of it. I'm I'm not sure

1:13:39

about the quality on those, but

1:13:41

whatever you end up finding, go with

1:13:43

the high quality if you find make sure it's the vibrant

1:13:46

colors um you

1:13:48

know, shop around. You can watch it

1:13:50

in Russian with subtitles that you

1:13:52

can also watch it again with this very

1:13:54

fun English dub um. Uh.

1:13:57

There's also a physical um Or

1:13:59

Roost Coco DVD that you can pick

1:14:01

up for a quite reasonable price online if you

1:14:03

want a physical disk to put into your DVD

1:14:06

player. Nice. So I think this was

1:14:08

our our what our second Russian film on

1:14:11

Weird House Cinema. There was the Teams in

1:14:13

the Universe. Oh yeah, the sci fi

1:14:15

one with the great robots, also

1:14:17

ultimately a children's film, and uh,

1:14:19

and here we are with another Russian children's

1:14:21

film. Well, I'm to understand there's plenty more

1:14:24

where that came from. It seems like, especially maybe

1:14:26

the sixties and seventies have a lot

1:14:28

of great, uh great looking fantasy

1:14:30

and sci fi films from Russia. Yeah.

1:14:32

Yeah, And we've heard from some listeners who have given

1:14:34

us some recommendations that also looked great and

1:14:36

and I've also run across some older films

1:14:39

that that also looked pretty good. There's a particular

1:14:41

Russian horror film that is that

1:14:43

is on my list, uh that we

1:14:45

we may have to get to in the months ahead,

1:14:48

or rather in the year ahead, because like

1:14:50

we said this, I believe this is gonna be it for this year.

1:14:52

We're gonna have a couple of repeats

1:14:54

in the weeks ahead, a couple of Weird

1:14:57

House Cinema rewind episodes, but then

1:14:59

we'll be back with something Christmas

1:15:01

with the Cranks in

1:15:05

January, as it should be. All

1:15:08

right. If you want to listen to other episodes of Weird

1:15:10

House Cinema, you'll find it every Friday

1:15:12

in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed

1:15:14

We are primarily a science and culture podcast,

1:15:17

with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1:15:19

but on Monday's we do listener

1:15:22

mail, on Wednesday's we do a short form artifact episode,

1:15:24

and on Fridays we set aside most serious

1:15:26

matters and we just talk about a weird

1:15:28

and interesting film. Huge

1:15:31

thanks as always to our excellent audio producer

1:15:33

Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1:15:35

to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1:15:38

or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or

1:15:40

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