Adventures of Captain Wrongel

Adventures of Captain Wrongel[1] (Russian: Приключения капитана Врунгеля, translit. Priklyucheniya kapitana Vrungelya) is a 1976-1979 Soviet musical adventure animation miniseries by David Cherkassky, Kievnauchfilm, loosely based on the novel with the same name by Andrey Nekrasov. The series consists of 13 episodes, of which 1-3 were filmed in 1976, 4-6 in 1977, 7-9 in 1978, 10-13 in 1979.

Adventures of Captain Wrongel
Captain Vrungel, Fuchs, Lom onboard (Po)beda
Directed byDavid Cherkassky
Written byAndrey Nekrasov (original novel) and I. Vorobyov (Yefim Chepovetsky, screenplay)
Music byGeorgy Firtich
Distributed byKievnauchfilm
Release date
  • 1980 (1980)
Running time
10 minutes (1-3)
10 minutes (4-6)
10 minutes (7-9)
10 minutes (10-13)
128 minutes total
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

The book by Nekrasov was first published in the Pioneer magazine in 1937 (shortened, in a form of a comics). A full text publication was issued in 1939. The novel is a parody on the popular sailor tales of the 1930s and on stereotypes then prevalent in the Soviet Union of foreigners and foreign countries. It received awards at Yerevan all-union film festival and the Czechoslovakia international TV film festival. The songs and music were performed by the soloists' ensemble of the State Symphony Orchestra of the UkSSR, conducted by N. Basov[2]

Plot

An important exhibit is stolen from the Royal Museum of Arts. Fuchs, its watchman and a gambler, was blackmailed by a mafia boss, also Chief of the Yacht Club, to steal the statue of Venus. The time of the theft was linked to an international regatta so that Fuchs could smuggle the stolen goods out of the country.

The Soviet naval school teacher and former sea captain Wrongel receives a telegram asking him to participate in the regatta. He and his pupil Lom (Лом - rus. "Crowbar") decide to set sail for the starting port, although by one of the many freak accidents that occur during the adventure, their ship's name is changed from "Pobeda" (ПОБЕДА - rus. "Victory") to "Beda" (БЕДА - rus. "Trouble"). Throughout almost the entire journey, Wrongel and Lom have no idea about the hidden purpose of the regatta. At that point in time for Fuchs everything is going smoothly and according to plan. All newspapers have written extensively about the "crime of the century". The Regatta is in danger of cancellation.

When Wrongel's Beda arrives, they find out that they need three crew members to participate in the regatta. Lom quickly finds Fuchs, who is desperate in his attempts to get to the Black Cuttlefish yacht as arranged with mafia. As a result, the much sought after statue of Venus ends up on Beda, instead of Black Cuttlefish, which was supposed to smuggle it out of the port.

Agent 00X is chasing the Venus, just like the mafiosi Bandito and Gangsterito, who are looking for Fuchs to take the Venus away from him.

Cast
  • Zinovy Gerdt as Captain Christopher Bonifatievich Wrongel
  • Yevgeny Paperny as Lom, Archibald Dandy / Chief, Zoo Director, Reporter 1, Yacht Club Member 2
  • Georgy Kishko as Sailor Fuchs, Customs Officer, Mailman, Reporter 2, Market Gambler 2, Plane Passenger 1
  • Grigory Shpigel as Agent 00X
  • George Kislyuk as Agent 00X (singing voice)
  • Eduard Nazarov as Captain of "Black Cuttlefish"
  • Semyon Farada as Giulico Banditto, Reporter 4
  • Alexander Burmistrov as De La Voro Gangsteritto, Theatre Director, Yacht Club Member 1, Market Gambler 1, Plane Passenger 2
  • Veniamin Smekhov - Admiral, Radio Announcer, Reporter 3

Trivia
  • In the original Russian version of the cartoon Wrongel was called Vrungel; it is a parody of a Wrangel surname, where the first part made from a colloquial word "vrun" (врун), Russian for liar. Following the release of this film, Vrungel became a colloquial name in Russia, a kind of Baron Munchausen. But as Nekrasov himself explained Vrungel's prototype was his mate Vronsky, who loved to tell tale stories from his life. His surname was suited for the protagonist so well that initially the book was named Adventures of Captain Vronsky, but Nekrasov later reconsidered the name because of his desire not to hurt his friend's feelings.
  • Agent 00X and his storyline is a pun over the western Agent 007. He wasn't present in original book.
  • Pobeda (stress on the second syllable) is Russian for Victory, Beda (stress on second syllable) is Russian for Trouble.
  • As Nekrasov explained, Lom's prototype was a naval school cadet Ivan Mann. In German his surname means man (Mann), and in French - «L'Homme» (reads as Lom)
  • Surname Fuchs means fox (from the German Fuchs)
  • Fuchs was hiding Venus sculpture inside a double bass case
  • This cartoon is made using the cut-out technique, similar to South Park and Monty Python, as well as traditional hand-drawn animation. Most of the cartoon features cut-outs. Some of the puppet animation techniques were also applied, for example rather than drawing ropes, pieces of real thread was used and it was stop-motion-animated; rather than drawing soap bubbles, animators used soap water / shaving cream on a glass, which they moved around frame-by-frame.
  • Many backgrounds in this cartoon (such as the ocean, waves, etc.) had been filmed in real life and were rear-projected behind the characters.

See also

References
  1. Amazon.com: The adventures of captain Wrongel (DVD NTSC). Wrongel is an adaptation of the Russian pun. In the original, captain's name is Vrungel, from "vrun" - "liar".
  2. "Капитан Врунгель — собирательный образ". Archived from the original on 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2016-01-29.

Sources
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