The Humpbacked Horse (film)

Plot

An old man has three sons: the elder two are considered fairly smart, while the youngest, Ivan, is considered an idiot. One day the father sends the three to find out who's been taking the hay in their fields at night. The elder brothers decide to lie hidden in a haystack, where they promptly fall asleep. Ivan, meanwhile, sits beside a birch tree and plays on his recorder. Suddenly, he sees a magnificent horse come flying out of the sky. Ivan grabs her mane and holds on as the horse tries to shake him off. Finally, the horse begs him to let her go and in return gives him two beautiful black male horses and a little humpbacked horse (Konyok-gorbunok) to be his companion.

Ivan leads the two black horses to a stable and runs off with Konyok-gorbunok to fetch them buckets of water. When he comes back, he finds that his brothers have taken his horses. Konyok-gorbunok tells him that they will catch them in the city, so Ivan sits on its back and they go flying through the clouds. Along the way, Ivan finds the fiery feather of a firebird, which shines without giving off any heat, and takes it despite Konyok-gorbunok's warning that it will cause him difficulty later.

They reach the city, and Ivan outwits his brothers and sells his black horses to the Tsar. When it is found that nobody can control them except Ivan, he is put in charge of the Tsar's stables. The Tsar's advisor takes a disliking to Ivan, and hides himself in the stables to watch him at work so that he can think of a way to remove him from the Tsar's favour. After seeing Ivan use the firebird's feather for light, he steals it from him and shows it to the Tsar, who commands Ivan to catch him a firebird or lose his post.

With Konyok-gorbunok's help, Ivan catches one and brings it back to the Tsar. The Tsar's advisor tells the Tsar to make Ivan catch a beautiful Tsar-Maid, so the Tsar summons him and tells him that the consequences will be dire if he doesn't bring her within three weeks. Ivan again manages to do this.

The elderly tsar is overjoyed and begs the young maiden to marry him, but she refuses, telling him that she would only marry him if he were young and handsome, and that to become young and handsome he would need to bathe first in boiling water, then in milk and then in freezing water. The tsar's advisor tells him to tr. this out on Ivan first, hoping at last to be rid of his nemesis. The tsar agrees, and when Ivan protests upon being told of this the tsar orders him to be thrown into prison until everything is ready the next morning. Konyok-gorbunok comes to Ivan and through the prison bars tells him not to worry - to simply whistle for him in the morning and let him put a magic spell on the water so that it will not be harmful to him. The advisor overhears this, and kidnaps Konyok-gorbunok just as he is walking away from Ivan.

In the morning, Ivan whistles for Konyok-gorbunok, who is tied in a bag. He manages to free himself eventually, and at the last moment comes to Ivan's rescue and puts a spell on the three cauldrons of water. Ivan jumps into the boiling water, then the milk and then the freezing water, and emerges as a handsome young man instead of a boy. The young maiden falls in love with him and they walk away. Meanwhile, the tsar gets excited and decides that he also wants to be young and handsome. However, the spell is no longer working, so after he jumps into the boiling water he doesn't come back out.

Awards

Version of 1947

Version of 1977

Interesting facts

In film distribution, on a film studio there are letters with a request again to release "Konyok-gorbunok". But the movie negative badly remained, and to print new copies it was impossible. When these lines were written, I finished work on the new version.

1975 version

In 1975 Ivan Ivanov-Vano made another version of the same film. The 1975 film is 70 minutes long; 15 minutes longer than the original. Although the progression of scenes and their plot content is usually the same as in the original, the animation and specific actions of the characters are different; for example, a scene may be taken from a different angle or in a different location (all of the backgrounds were also newly-drawn). Sometimes a scene was drawn out, other times contracted (for example, the scene where Ivan first sees the white horse is much-simplified compared to 1947).

This was done because the original film was then in a very bad shape and the technical expertise for a restoration did not exist. In 2004, with the technical expertise now existing in Russia, the original film was restored and released on DVD by Krupnyy Plan (Крупный План).

The 1975 version was redubbed, recut and released in the United States as The Magic Pony in 1977, with Jim Backus as the voice of the Tsar and Johnny Whitaker as Ivan.

Video

Two animated films are released videotapes in the 1980s by "Videoprogramma Goskino the USSR" in SECAM system and the 1990s years in PAL system. In the early nineties the version of the animated film of 1977 is issued on videotapes by the film association "Krupnyy Plan". In the mid-nineties both animated films are released in the VHS collection of the best Soviet animated films Studio PRO Video, and also Union of Video studio on two animated films on two videotapes.

From the 2000s to the present on DVD both versions of the animated film are issued, and the version of 1947 is restored and issued by the film association "Krupnyy Plan". The version of 1975 is issued on DVD in 2003 in the 5th release of "A gold collection of favourite animated films", and also on other DVD Soyuz Video studio in the collection of animated films "The Fairy Tale behind the Fairy Tale".