''Starik Khottabych'' (russian: Старик Хоттабыч, ''Old Man Khottabych'' or ''Old Khottabych'') is a

Sovcolor An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from café in Oslo, Norway. An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from Paris, France. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Hungary. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Zakopane in Poland. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 fr ...

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

fantasy film Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...

produced in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

Goskino Goskino USSR (russian: link=Yes, Госкино СССР) is the abbreviated name for the USSR State Committee for Cinematography (Государственный комитет по кинематографии СССР) in the Soviet Union. It w ...

at Kinostudyia Lenfilm (Lenfilm Studio) in 1956, based on a children's book of the same name by

Lazar Lagin Lazar Iosifovich Lagin (russian: Ла́зарь Ио́сифович Лагин), real name Lazar Ginzburg (4 December 1903, Vitebsk – 4 June 1979, Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian author of children's and science fiction books. Lagin is be ...

who also wrote the film's script, and directed by

Gennadi Kazansky Gennadi Kazansky (1 December 1910 – 14 September 1983) was a Soviet film director of the Soviet era.Goble p.355 Life and career Gennadi Kazansky was born on 18 November 18 or December 1910 in Voronezh. He studied art history at the Leningrad ...

. In the United States, the film was released theatrically by Sovexportfilm, with English subtitles, under the title ''The Flying Carpet'' through

Artkino Pictures Nicola Napoli, was the President of Artkino Pictures, Inc., the primary distributor of Soviet films in the United States, Canada, Central America and South America from 1940 to 1982. Napoli was a double agent Soviet Spy for the United States. In 19 ...

in 1960.

Plot summary

Volka,Volka (Willie) is a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

form of the name Volya which also was a diminutive name of

Vladimir Vladimir may refer to: Names * Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name * Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name * Volodymyr for the Ukr ...

: "Yesterday, a pioneer named Vladimir Kostylkov came to his district militia station and handed the officer on duty a treasure consisting of antique gold objects which he found on the bottom of the river, in a very deep place.

/ref> a 12-year-old Soviet Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union, Young Pioneer, discovers an ancient vessel at the bottom of a river. When he opens it, a

genie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic mytho ...

emerges. He calls himself Hassan Abdul-rahman ibn Khottab, but Volka renames him Khottabych. The name Khottabych is derived from the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

name Khattab with the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

-ych, yielding a Russian equivalent of ibn-Khottab (son of Khottab). Khottabych later claims to be 3,732 years and 5 months old. The grateful Khottabych is ready to fulfill any of Volka's wishes, but it becomes clear that Volka should use the powers of the genie carefully, for they can have some unforeseen undesirable results.

Cast

* as Hassan Abdurrahman ibn Khottab ("Old Khottabych") which is the name of a jinn (kind of non bad spirit) * Alexey Litvinov as Volka Kostylkov (Volka ibn Alyosha) * Genya Khudyskov as Zhenya - Volka's friend * Lyova Kovalychuk as Goga Pilyukin (Goga-Pilyulya ("pill" in Russian) - young boy who verbally spreads news on the street * Maya Blinova as Volka's Mother * Vera Romanova as Glafira Kuzminichna - Goga's Mother * Olga Cherkasova as Varvara Stepanovna - school class leader * Efim Kopelyan as emir Mukhammdov : drilling master from Baku (capital of Azerbaijan Republic) *

Aleksandr Larikov Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

as doctor , * Evgeniy Vesnik as militiaman , *

Zinaida Sharko Zinaida Maximovna Sharko (russian: Зинаида Максимовна Шарко; 14 May 1929 – 4 August 2016) was a Russian actress of theatre and film. She was a member of Bolshoi Drama Theatre, and was awarded People's Artist of the RSFSR i ...

as woman who sold ice cream in a circus

Production personnel

* Production director: Tamara Samoznaeva * Producer: Lev Makhtin * Screenplay by

* Directed by

* Cinematographer: Muzakir Shuruckov * Art directors: Isaak Kaplan, Bella Manevich * Composer:

Nadezhda Simonyan Nadezhda Simonyan (February 26, 1922 - June 7, 1997) was a Russian composer who wrote over 40 film scores for movies, radio, and television, as well as chamber and orchestral works, and music for circus performances. Simonyan was born in Rostov- ...

* Sound operator: Grigory Albert Special effects team: * Director of photography: Mihail Shamkovich * Camera operators: B. Durov, M. Pocrovsky * Art directors: A. Alekseyev, Mihail Krotkin, Maria Kandat

Production notes

The novel is influenced by the tale of

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of ...

and his magical lamp, and it was quite popular with Soviet kids. There were two major versions of the novel - the original was published in 1938, and a revised version followed in 1955. This later version was the basis of the 1956 film. Revisions to the novel were made by Lagin himself in order to incorporate the changes taking place in the USSR and the rest of the world into the narrative, including some ideological anti-capitalistic elements. The original edition has been republished in the

Post-Soviet The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

era.

Awards

*1958

Moscow International Film Festival The Moscow International Film Festival (russian: Моско́вский междунаро́дный кинофестива́ль, translit. ''Moskóvskiy myezhdunaródniy kinofyestivál''; abbreviated as MIFF) is the film festival first h ...

award *1958

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

award

Video

Early 1990s - Russkoje Video (VHS) December 2003 - Russian Cinema Councill (DVD). The disc contains four spoken languages in Dolby Digital 5.1: Russian original, English voice-over, French and Arabic languages; subtitles in Russian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish, German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese. It also contains special features "Monologue in the Intermission", "Another Genie", filmography and a photo album.

External links

* * *
Lazar Lagin. The Old Genie Hottabych (english translation)
at

Maksim Moshkow's Library Lib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library (russian: link=no, библиотека Максима Мошкова, started to operate in November 1994) is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment. Founded and supported ...

Old Khottabych (Movie for kids with English subtitles)

Юрий Белов. «Старик Хоттабыч»: Учебное пособие к фильму для изучающих русский язык как неродной
(Textbook of Russian based on the film)

References

{{reflist Soviet fantasy comedy films Lenfilm films 1956 films 1950s fantasy comedy films Russian fantasy comedy films Films based on children's books Russian children's fantasy films Films based on Russian novels 1950s Russian-language films Fictional genies Films directed by Gennadi Kazansky Films based on fairy tales Soviet children's films