The Nutcracker (1973) User Reviews

IF YOU CAN FIND IT, SEE THR ORIGINAL RUSSIAN VERSION!

[Tony-Scheinman · 9/10 · 16 December 2020]

To sum up this version of the classic story in one word, I would use the word "beautiful"! The animation is marvelous and this unusual telling of the story (the heroine here is a maidservant instead of the daughter of the family, and there is not a single word of dialogue!) make this not short of a masterpiece.

This can be found in two versions: the original Russian animated short and a version with English dialogue added for an episode of the series MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV'S STORIES FROM MY CHILDHOOD, and I have to say that I personally prefer the original Russian version as I feel that the dubbed dialogue and narration by Shirley MacLaine really distract from the sheer beauty of the animation and the music (also, the dialogue, in my opinion, is not well-written).

My personal suggestion is that you see the original version, which is publicly available, but whichever version you see first, some of the magic and enchantment will always stay with you after you see it.

Soyuzmultfilm at their most enchanting

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 24 January 2015]

Soyuzmultfilm have been responsible for animations that a vast majority of the time have ranged from very good to outstanding, E.T.A Hoffmann's story is timeless and actually even darker than it's usually portrayed as and Tchaikovsky's music is some of the best of the ballet genre.

Soyuzmultfilm's version of The Nutcracker, named Shchelkunchik, is one of my personal favourites from the studio. It's one of their most enchanting and really connected with me emotionally, while Soyuzmultfilm's animations are emotionally engaging very few are as much as Shchelkunchik. The animation is just fabulous, the character designs have their own charm if not having the same amount of detail as had gone into the backgrounds. With the backgrounds in the second half, the standout being that in the sequence with all those sparkling shapes accompanied by the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy dance, if there is any Soyuzmultfilm animation with more magical-looking backgrounds I've yet to see it(even those in their version of Beauty and the Beast, 1952's Alenkiy Tsvetochek, are not as so). The colours are very rich and elegant, and darkly foreboding when needed.

Musically Shchelkunchik, all by Tchaikovsky, is a stunner. While it's Nutcracker-dominated, the use of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty were more than welcome. It's beautifully performed with not one questionable tempo, the violin solo in the Swan Lake Russian Dance was played with such beauty of tone and melancholic grace, with plenty of tense power and poetic nuances. The music used is not used in its entirety, in snippet form with cuts which may be a shame for some but actually it does not cheapen the music at all and almost all of it is placed very appropriately, the Swan Lake Russian Dance(that was such a charmingly beautiful sequence), Nutcracker Pas De Deux and Waltz of the Flowers being particularly effective. The Sleeping Beauty Carabosse scenes enhanced the tension of Nutcracker's back-story very well and while I would have preferred the Nutcracker Battle music for the climax the mix of the Carabosse music and the Swan Lake climatic music fitted excellently in mood and how it matched with the visuals. Only one music placement was questionable, which was the use of the Chinese Dance when we first see the mice at the start of the climax. It's a suspenseful scene and the Chinese Dance's music is quite light-hearted, it juxtaposed a little too much mood-wise.

There's no dialogue or voice-acting, a wise move as the animation and music did all the talking and did amazingly at that. Narratively, details-wise it is somewhat loosely based on the Hoffmann story, though Nutcracker's back-story did seem initially inspired by the Princess Pirlipat plot-line and it does include the Mouse King having more than one head(though three here instead of seven in the story). But the spirit of the original story is maintained if not as dark, and it is very loyal in narrative structure to Tchaikovsky's ballet story-wise(the discovery of the Nutcracker, the mistreatment of him, the battle, the Nutcracker's/Prince's gratefulness for the chamber maid saving him and the return to the kingdom). There's differences(a chamber maid instead of Clara, no Sugar Plum Fairy, no Drosselmeyer), but it was really nice to have the back-story for the Nutcracker/Prince with how he came to be the Nutcracker making it easier to relate to him, the original story has a back-story but a different one but the ballet doesn't. This said instead of being an adaptation of just the original story or just the ballet elements of both are incorporated and beautifully. It's a magical, timeless story with plenty of charm and emotional impact, and magical, timeless, charming and emotionally charged it was in Shchelkunchik.

When it comes to the characters the chamber maid and the Nutcracker were very easy to relate to and they had great chemistry together, while the Mouse Queen and King were suitably sinister villains. All in all, truly enchanting, a visual and musical wonder brilliantly told. 10/10 Bethany Cox

admirable

[Kirpianuscus · 19 December 2023]

Soyuzmultfilm in its graceful expression.

It is the simple definition of this short adaptation, the ballet music of Chaikovski meeting familiar drawings and proposing a nice show, gentle, beautiful, provocative ( the girl is remplaced by a servant girl ) .

Sure, for a part of audience, source of nostalgia.

For other, discover of the charme of Soviet animation and its manner to give not only beauty and emotion to story but something easy to define as ...kindness and wisdom.

In essence, a small slice from a great art , poetic, delicat, precise crafted. And a good trip across Chaikovski work, , The Nutcracker , Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty being used, in inspired manner, to define moments of story.

In short, admirable.

No justice done to the material I guess

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 25 July 2016]

"Shchelkunchik" or "The Nutcracker" is an animated short film from the Soviet Union that was released in 1973, so it's almost 45 years old. The director is Boris Stepantsev, who also worked on the script, and other aspects here include the work from E.T.A. Hoffmann and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. "The Nutcracker" is a pretty well-known story that got used on many occasions, not just in music, but also on film. the good thing here is that you won't need any subtitles as there is no Russian dialogue in here and you hear basically nothing other than the music. At the same time, you watch the animation and I personally must say that I am not too impressed. This is nothing really convincing for a film from the 1970s and I have seen far better animation on several occasions from older works. The way the story here is depicted (and that includes the characters) is nothing really outstanding or memorable I must say. I am baffled by the other review and by the rating as I found this a fairly mediocre work and if you care about the music only, then I suggest listening to a record. Thumbs down for this one, nowhere near the finest from Soviet animation back then.