Jolly Fellows
A buoyant, music-driven comedy about mistaken identity and romance, built on charm, musical numbers, and the joy of performance.
Merry Fellows was the first Soviet musical comedy. Set in Odessa and Moscow in the 1930s. Shepherd Kostya Potekhin is mistaken for an international concert star. He falls in love with Anyuta and plays the "star" for her. In a cascade of comic musical numbers he becomes the leader of a Jazz-Band and gives a hilarious show at the Odessa Music Hall. Now he is destined to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Essence
Ensemble
Leonid Utyosov
Kostya Potekhin
Lyubov Orlova
Anyuta, the housemaid
Mariya Strelkova
Yelena, child of the Foreign Trade Union
Fyodor Kurikhin
Mortician
Emmanuil Geller
Music-hall audience member (uncredited)
Yelena Tyapkina
Anyuta's stepmother
Niki Otto
Musician, fight instigator
Arnold Arnold
Fraschini, the conductor from Paraguay
Robert Erdman
German music teacher
Closest match
Nearest across the full emotional profile.
Same mood
Nearest on what's most distinctive about this one.
Go darker
Similar, pushed toward heavier and more intense.
Hidden gem
Same territory, far fewer people have seen it.
