MERRY FELLOWS

Comedy. 1934. Directed by Grigori Alexandrov. Starring: Leonid Utyosov, Lyubov Orlova, ?ariya Strelkova, Yelena Tyapkina. No English subtitles."Merry Fellows" is the first musical comedy directed by Grigori Alexandrov. The plot is a rags-to-riches tale of Kostya Potekhin (Leonid Utyosov), a shepherd who ends up the conductor of a jazz orchestra. Invited to a swanky party, the shepherd plays his pan flute for the enraptured audience, only to discover that all of the animals from his farm have followed the sound of his music to the dining room and destroyed the carefully prepared feast. The romantic subplot involves Anyuta (Lyubov Orlova), a servant to Yelena who falls for Kostya, but has trouble getting him to notice. This was the first Soviet film in which entire sequences were shot to pre-recorded musical accompaniment and there are several comic bits involving both sound and music. First released as "The Shepherd of Abrau," this film is also known as "Jazz Comedy" and "Moscow Laughs." This film is the first in a series of films directed by Alexandrov and starring Orlova, including "Circus" and "Volga Volga."