Film

A Very Old Story

1968 · 1h 30m · Family · Fantasy

IMDb

7.6

Based on the famous fairytale "The Tinderbox" by Hans Christian Andersen. The main character of the film is a puppeteer who lives in a poor and gray world. He composes a fairy tale in which he himself, in the guise of a brave soldier, finds a flint and is helped by a kind wizard. The soldier falls in love with a spoiled, capricious princess who, as befits a princess, poses riddles to her numerous suitors. Her father, the king, is eager to see the soldier as her husband, as he believes the soldier has a great deal of gold. In the fairy tale, everything ends well, but in real life, not so much. "But life is not a fairy tale," his beloved girl says to him as she bids him farewell.

Oleg Dal

Soldier / Puppet master

Marina Neyolova

Princess / innkeeper's daughter

Vladimir Etush

King / Innkeeper

Georgiy Vitsin

good wizard

Vera Titova

witch / davil's grandmother

Viktor Perevalov

Prince-chimney sweep

Georgiy Shtil

Eastern Prince

Anatoly Korolkevich

doorman

Georgi Georgiu

"thick"

Lev Lemke

"thin"

Igor Dmitriev

Boris Lyoskin

Anatoli Abramov

contender for groom

Oleg Belov

Tatyana Gorlova

Kirill Gun

• Nadezhda KosheverovaDirector
• Valeri FridScreenplay
• Yuli DunskyScreenplay
• Hans Christian AndersenNovel
• Semyon GoloshchyokinExecutive Producer
• Konstantin RyzhovDirector of Photography
• Andrey PetrovOriginal Music Composer
• Valentina MironovaEditor

Release date

December 31, 1968

Status

Released

Original language

Russian

Runtime

1h 30m

Genres

Family, Fantasy