It Was I Who Drew the Little Man


It Was I Who Drew the Little Man is a 1960 Soviet cel-animated feature film directed by the "grandmothers of the Russian animation", Brumberg sisters, and Valentin Lalayants. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. The film is an expanded remake of a 1948 21-minute film by the same directors called Fedya Zaytsev.
In Russia, the film is available as part of the DVD collection called "Здравствуй, школа!". No English-subtitled version has been released.

Plot

On the first of September, Fedya Zaytsev is the very first kid who comes to school. In his joy at realizing this, he draws a little man with an umbrella on the wall of his classroom with a piece of charcoal, realizing too late that this is against the rules. In class, the teacher notices the drawing and asks everyone to raise their hands. Fedya rubs out his hands so that they are clean, but his friend, with whom he had shaken hands earlier, has dirty hands and is blamed. Fedya goes home without saying anything, but the little man whom he drew follows him, and he teams up with all of Fedya's toys and the heroes of his favourite books to teach him a lesson. At the end of the film, Fedya admits to his mistake.

Creators

Creation history

This full-length scenario corresponds to Mikhail Volpin and Nikolai Erdman's initial scenario offered for statement in 1947 and from the very beginning broken into two parts. The first part was quickly started in production, and the second is met by the negative review: "the scenario department doesn't satisfy not only for the formal reasons, but also on the substance of the development of a plot". The plot under the name "In the Lie Kingdom" was sent to completion, thus "Fedya Zaytsev" had to terminate not in recognition of the hero, and the open final assuming possibility of future continuation. However and the modified scenario was rejected in this connection, also "Fedya Zaytsev's" final changed.
Authors didn't leave the idea of a series of movies about Fedya Zaytsev which is warmed up by great success of the picturized first part. Erdman and Volpin wrote the scenario "Fedya Zaytsev at Dacha" according to which in 1955 sisters Brumberg shot the animated film The Island of Mistakes.
To the scenario "In the Lie Kingdom" authors returned only to a heat of "thaw", however last thirteen years since the screen version of the first movie prompted to remove not simply continuation, and a remake for new generation – "in its present, not crumpled look". According to M. V. Romashova, "existence of the original and a remake – the extraordinary case, which analysis will allow to reveal ways of representation of the school world during social transformations".

Interesting fact

In the mid-nineties the animated film is released on videotapes in collections of the best Soviet animated films Studio PRO Video and a videostudio "Soyuz". In 2003 the animated film is released in the collection "Hi, school!" Soyuz studio on VHS and DVD.