Gutta-percha Boy () is a 1957 Soviet
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
adaptation of the novel by Russian writer
Dmitry Grigorovich.
Plot
The film is set at the end of the 19th century.
Petya is an eight-year-old orphan who has been given into training to the German acrobat Karl Becker, who with curses and beatings introduces his new assistant to the circus profession and ruthlessly exploits the child in his performances. The only consolation which brightens the harsh life of the ''
gutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus ''Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae, which is primarily used to create a high-quality latex of the same name. The material is rigid, naturally biologically Chemically inert, inert, resilient, electrically n ...
boy'', as Petya is referred to on the posters, is the concern of the
carpet clown Edwards, who pities the orphan and secretly teaches him the real art of the circus. During one of the performances, Petya, while performing a difficult trick on Becker's demand, falls from a high altitude.
Cast
*
Alexey Gribov
Alexey Nikolayevich Gribov (November 26, 1977) was a Soviet and Russian actor, "master of all types of Russian national character"Inna SolovyovaAlexey Nikolayevich Gribovarticle at the Moscow Art Theatre website (in Russian) mostly remembered fo ...
as Clown Edwards
*
Mikhail Nazvanov
Mikhail Mikhailovich Nazvanov (; 12 April 1918 – 13 July 1964) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor. He was awarded Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1949.
Biography
Mikhail Nazvanov was born in Moscow in the wealthy family of a large t ...
as Karl Bogdanovich Bekker
* Aleksandr Popov as Petya Subbotin (as Sasha Popov)
*
Inna Fyodorova as Varvara Akimovna
*
Olga Vikladt as Maria Pavlovna
*
Ivan Koval-Samborsky
Ivan Koval-Samborsky ( Ukrainian: Іван Коваль-Самборський; 16 September 1893 – 10 January 1962) was a Ukrainian stage and film actor. After establishing himself in the Soviet film industry in the 1920s, he briefly went to wo ...
as Circus Manager
* Andrei Alekseyevich Popov, Andrei Popov as Count Sergey
* Marina Strizhenova as Countess
* Aleksandra Popova as Aunt Sonya
* Marina Gutkovich as Verochka
External links
*
1957 films
1957 drama films
Soviet drama films
Russian-language drama films
Circus films
Mosfilm films
Films based on Russian novels
1950s Soviet films
1950s Russian-language films
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