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A Russian reader tells us about a Soviet movie, "The Secret of the Iron Door". It is a Soviet science fiction film with a plot that will appeal to children. A fourth form boy Tolik Ryizhkov (Evaldas Mikaliunas) is a naughty child and fibber. Once he received a box of magic matches while hiding behind the iron door of a transformer booth. We notice one scene in whih children dress up for a music recital. Learning a musical instrument was considered very important in Russia, both before and after the Revolution. We see fancy outfits advertized in Soviet fashion magazines.
"The Secret of the Iron Door" (1970) is a Soviet science fiction film with an imaginative plot that will appeal to children. It was directed by Mikhail Yuzovsky with a screenplay by Aleksandr Rejzhevsky. The film is loosely based on a story by Yuri Tomin entitled (in English) "Wizard Walked Through". The Cinematography is by Vitaly Grishin. The music is by Vadim Gamaleya.
The principal cast members are Evaldas Mikaliunas as Tolik (boy), Andrei Kharybin as Mishka (boy), Dmitri Yuzovsky as Mitka (boy), Sergei Yevsyunin as Wizard (boy), Alisa Freindlich as Tolik's mother, Oleg Tabakov as Tolik's father, Saveli Kramarov as Guitarist Zaytsev/Pigeon, Yuri Uspensky as Robot Balbes, Vladimir Savin, Gerasim Voronkov, and Vyacheslav Tsyupa as Chicha.
Fourth form (grade) boy Tolik Ryizhkov (Evaldas Mikaliunas) is a naughty child and fibber. An interesting aspect of Soviet films is how nauhjty boys are depicted. Often this is how they relate to teachers and other authority figures. (This varied chronologically and is especially pronounced in Stalinist-era films.) In American films their behavior toward authority figures is often less important than how they relate to friends and a little rebeliouness is often depicted as a positive character element. Once Tolik obtains a box of magic matches while hiding behind the iron door of a transformer booth. Every match, when broken, can act like a magic wand but only once. A boy with his two friends and a dog find themselves on an island of an evil wizard (Sergei Yevsyunin) of their own age, who a different but equal box of matches and used them to creat his own little egocentric world. The young wizard put Tolik's friends in prison and is trying to make Tolik as evil as himself. But Tolik stays faithful to his friendship and rescues his friends without the help of any magic. I'm not sure how the recital scene here fits into the story.
We notice one scene in whih children dress up for a music recital. Learning a musical instrument was considered very important in Russia, both before and after the Revolution. We see fancy outfits advertized in Soviet fashion magazines. A good example is an unidentified 1988 publication.
In the scene here, it looks as though the boys wear velvet suits for their music recital (figure 1). One of the boys wears black velvet short trousers with white tights--a sort of modern Lord Faunterloy outfit.
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