Magic Horse/Hunchbacked Horse

[MonkeyFunk]

There is a lot of confusion around this film, since it has had several different dubs, and been known variously as 'The Magic Horse', The Magic Pony', 'Ivan and his Magic Pony', 'Over the Rainbow', and 'The Little Hunchbacked Horse'. The first animated feature from the U.S.S.R., it was released in 1941, making it to the USA in dubbed form for a 1949 theatrical release. In 1977 it was re-released in the USA as 'The Magic Pony', with a new dub and different voice cast, and a synposis which seems to differ from the 1941 (1949) version. Finally, it was re-dubbed again in 1998 as part of the 'Stories of my Childhood' TV series. Same film, different music, different voice actors from the 1977 version.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED with yet another animated film called 'The Magic Horse', this time from the 1950's, by Charlotte Reiniger ('Director of The Adventures of Prince Achmed'), and probably made for TV.


I'm not sure if this is accurate... according to IMDB, the 1941 Konyok-gorbunok (huchbacked horse) is a live action film directed by Alksandr Rou, while the 1947 Konyok-gorbunok is Ivan Ivanov-Vano's animated movie. Also, the Stories from my Childhood tie-in book identifies 1947 as the year of release.

And I hate to add to the confusion here, but I've heard some conflicting information about how many Konyok-gorbunok movies Soyuzmultfilm made; IMDB has an entry for a 1976 movie of the same name - which could be the redub identified here, although the book claims that there was a 1977 remake.

[athena]

hmm... that's one of the profiles that lupercal added during his time as an animation editor here, so personally I have no idea...

I'll try to look into it though...

[lupercal]

It's so long ago, and I remember tying myself in knots trying to sort out how many movies and redubs there were, and what they were all called, and that was what I ended up with. Since then I've read a few things that made me less positive that what I wrote was completely concise, but nothing so clear-cut that I would have changed it. I do definately remember seeing the 1941 film listed as animated. If you want to get even more confused, there's also a 1935 Hindi language film called 'The Magic Horse', directed by Babubhai Jani.

Loop

[MonkeyFunk]

Ah, the 1976 film is apparently a remake. From AniTOP (http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/):

"I had a chance to compare the two versions of The Humpbacked Horse recently. To begin with, I was surprised to find that there even was a remake. I mean, the folly of remaking what was already a classic seems obvious. And the remake did indeed seem to sap away everything that was good about the original, destroying the speedy feeling and great rhythm going from slow to fast to slow to fast that made the original so great. I don't know for sure, but it felt like they actually slowed down the animation for some reason. Perhaps it was simply all redone. I haven't compared closely. The fish scene that was added seemed rather pointless as well. In any case, it's a mystery what prompted IIV to do this."