Vysotskii & old ballads (cont.)

[George Kalbouss]

Let me add a few numbers to this growing list:

(1 )Almost at the beginning of the Greta Garbo film, "Anna Karenina"   
(1935) a camera
scans backwards over a table of endless zakuski (later imitated by  
Orson Wells)
  as a choir sings "Vo kuznitse."  Snippets of other gypsy nightclub  
numbers follow.

(2) In "Wonderman," (1945) Danny Kaye tries to sing "Ochi Chernye"  
while stifling
a sneeze.

(3) In "The Inspector General" (1949) Danny Kaye  sings "O zachem eta  
noch'"
while he divides the audience into three choruses intoning "zoom,"   
"shtok-shtok" and
"ha-ha-ha."  This is all  part of a more elaborate  number, "Play  
Gypsy."

George Kalbouss
On Aug 1, 2006, at 9:13 AM, Eloise Boyle wrote:

> And let's not forget the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers vehicle "Shall We
> Dance," where Fred plays Pete Peterson (from Pittsburgh, PA),  
> masquerading
> as the great "Petrov," a Russian ballet dancer.   Though he does not  
> sing
> "Ochi chernye," he does walk around declaiming those two words as  
> evidence
> of his Russianness.  Hollywood's shorthand for Russians in the 30's  
> and 40's
> is really quite interesting.
>
> --Eloise Boyle
>
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