Vesyolye Rebyata

Jolly Fellows

by Grigori Aleksandrov

Russia - 1934

Saturday, June 8th • 2PM
At Chaktomuk

Feature Film - 96mn

Black & White

Russian with English subtitles

ScreenplayGrigori Aleksandrov & Nikolai Erdman

CinematographyVladimir Nilsen

MusicIsaak Dunayevsky

CastLyubov Orlova, Leonid Utyosov

Format35mm – Mono

GenreMusical comedy

First Release1934

ProductionStudio Mosfilm



SynopsisYelena (Mariya Strelkova), a well-off would-be singer who can’t carry a tune, mistakes shepherd Kostya Potekhin (Leonid Utyosov) for a famous Italian conductor of a jazz orchestra and invites him to an elegant party held in her house. Yelena’s servant Anyuta (Lyubov Orlova) falls for Kostya. But Kostya is attracted to Yelena, and when she turns him down following the discovery of his real identity, he is very upset. He leaves for the city to try himself as a professional musician and he joins a jazz band consisting of young “jolly fellows”.

AboutJolly Fellows is the first Soviet musical film with the first film of the star Lyubov Orlova (Grigori Aleksandrov’s wife). Grigori Aleksandrov (1903-1983) collaborated with Sergei Eisenstein on several Eisenstein’s films : his first feature length film, Strike, The Battleship Potemkin, October, Ten Days That Shook the World... In the early 1930s, Aleksandrov traveled with Eisenstein to Mexico for the filming of Eisenstein’s unrealized project.. An edited version of the footage, known as ¡Qué viva México!, was put together by Aleksandrov in 1979. He taught directing at VGIK from 1951 to 1957.