Jolly Fellows (1934)

Overview

Merry Fellows was the first Soviet musical comedy. Set in Odessa and Moscow in the 1930s. Shepherd Kostya Potekhin (Utyosov) is mistaken for an international concert star. He falls in love with Anyuta (Orlova) 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.

Cast

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