The Happy Canary Explained

The Happy Canary
Director:	Lev Kuleshov
Cinematography:	Boris Frantsisson Pyotr Yermolov
Editing:	Lev Kuleshov
Studio:	Mezhrabpomfilm
Runtime:	73 minutes
Country:	Soviet Union
Language:	Silent Russian intertitles

The Happy Canary or The Gay Canary (Russian: Весёлая канарейка|Vesyolaya kanareyka) is a 1929 Soviet silent adventure film directed by Lev Kuleshov and starring Galina Kravchenko, Andrey Fayt and Ada Vojtsik.^[1]

The film's sets were designed by the art director Sergei Kozlovsky.

Plot

Actress Brio working in a cafe "The Happy Canary", does not suspect that her new acquaintances Brianski and Lugovec are Communists sent by an underground committee to fight the enemy's counter-intelligence ...

Cast

• Galina Kravchenko as Brio
• Andrey Fayt as Lugovec
• Ada Vojtsik as Lugovec' wife
• Sergey Komarov as Brianski
• Yuri Vasilchikov as Assistant Chief Secret Service
• Mikhail Doronin as Chief Secret Service
• Vladimir Kochetov as French communist soldier
• Vsevolod Pudovkin as Illusionist
• Aleksandr Chistyakov as Workman
• N. Kopysov as Workman
• Aleksandr Zhutaev as Workman

Reception

Henri Barbusse described Gay Canary as "an amusing picture of the fever of revels and intrigues which took possession of Odessa during the foreign occupation ten years ago".^[2]

Bibliography

• Christie, Ian & Taylor, Richard. The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939. Routledge, 2012.

Notes and References

1. Christie & Taylor p.429
2. Book: Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. George Allen & Unwin. Jay Leyda. Jay Leyda. 1960. 270.