Wedding in Malinovka

Wedding in Malinovka
Wedding in Malinovka
Directed by	Andrei Tutyshkin
Written by	Leonid Yukhvid
Produced by	Semyon Malkin
Cinematography	Vyacheslav Fastovich
Edited by	Mariya Pen
Music by	Boris Aleksandrov
Production; company	Lenfilm
Release date	1967;
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian
Box office	74.6 million tickets

Wedding in Malinovka (Russian: Свадьба в Малиновке, Svadba v Malinovke) is a 1967 Soviet musical comedy film directed by Andrei Tutyshkin based on an operetta by Boris Aleksandrov adapted by Leonid Yukhvid.^[2]^[3]

The film is about a Ukrainian village during the time of the Russian Civil War. With power alternating almost daily between Soviet and Ukrainian nationalist forces, the villagers of Malinovka are never sure who is in charge, so they modify their behaviour and dress accordingly.

Plot

The village of Malinovka, during the years of the Russian Civil War, finds itself constantly shifting between different rulers. Despite the hardships of war, love blossoms between the shepherd Andreyka and Yarinka, the daughter of a revolutionary exiled to Siberia during the Tsarist era. Trouble arrives when a band led by the "ideological ataman" Gritsian Tavrichesky, a native of the village, seizes Malinovka. The ataman, intent on establishing his own "independent state," begins his reign with looting and violence. He becomes infatuated with Yarinka and tries to force her into marriage through threats.

Frightened, Yarinka escapes into the forest, where she encounters a small detachment of Red Army cavalry, scouts sent by Grigory Kotovsky's forces. She pleads for their help, and the unit's commander, Nazar Duma, devises a plan to defeat the numerically superior bandits. For the plan to work, Yarinka must pretend to agree to marry the ataman. Meanwhile, the Red Army captures a White Army officer, Chechel, who had been sent to establish an alliance with Gritsian's band. Disguised as Chechel, Nazar Duma infiltrates the wedding. His strategy involves catching the bandits off guard when they are drunk, while he delivers grandiose toasts, charms the crowd with his refined manners, and discreetly disables the gang's machine guns.

As the time for the attack approaches, the signal is delayed. Gritsian grows suspicious of "Chechel" and pressures Yarinka, forcing Nazar to act alone. In a critical moment, reinforcements arrive, and the bandits are defeated. They are attacked from two sides: by Nazar's cavalry and by the women of Malinovka, led by Yashka the Artilleryman. The next morning, after this unconventional "wedding," Nazar Duma, who turns out to be Yarinka's father, gives his blessing to her union with Andreyka.

Cast

Vladimir Samoilov as Nazar Duma, Red squadron commander
Liudmyla Alfimova as Sofya (vocal by Valentina Levko)
Valentina Lysenko as Yarinka
Yevgeni Lebedev as Nechipor
Zoya Fyodorova as Gorpina Dormidontovna
Heliy Sysoyev as Andreyka (vocal by Mikhail Egorov)
Mikhail Pugovkin as Yashka the Gunner
Nikolai Slichenko as Petrya
Grigori Abrikosov as Grytsko Balyasny, or Pan-Ataman Gritsian Tavrichesky.
Andrei Abrikosov as Balyasny Senior
Mikhail Vodyanoy as Popandopulo^[4]
Tamara Nosova as Komarikha
Emma Treyvas as Tryndychikha
Aleksei Smirnov as Smetana
Margarita Krinitsyna as Redhead
Aleksandr Orlov as priest
Lyubov Tishchenko as peasant woman
Boris Leskin as bandit
Vyacheslav Voronin as Chechil

Dance scenes were cast with the participation of the Moldovan dance troupe Joc.

Cultural influence

One of the film's main characters, Nazar Duma, has a completely unrelated namesake in a different famous Soviet film, Tractor Drivers (1939). This coincidence was used in a crossover parody film, Tractor Drivers 2.