Taras Bulba (1962)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

J. Lee Thompson

Writers:

Nikolai Gogol (novel)
Waldo Salt (writer)

Release Date:

19 December 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Romance | War

Tagline:

A Love Story of Flesh And Fire!

Plot:

A "Romeo and Juliet" story that takes place in the late 16c. Ukraine. Taras has settled into comfortable...

Plot Keywords:

Cossack | Ukraine | Battle | The Turks | Betrayal

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Tony Curtis	...	Andrei Bulba
Yul Brynner	...	Taras Bulba
Sam Wanamaker	...	Filipenko
Brad Dexter	...	Shilo
Guy Rolfe	...	Prince Grigory
Perry Lopez	...	Ostap Bulba
George Macready	...	Governor
Ilka Windish	...	Sofia Bulba
Vladimir Sokoloff	...	Old Stepan
Vladimir Irman	...	Grisha Kubenko
Daniel Ocko	...	Ivan Mykola
Abraham Sofaer	...	Abbot
Mickey Finn	...	Korzh
Richard Rust	...	Capt. Alex
Ron Weyand	...	Tymoshevsky

Runtime:

122 min | 124 min (TCM print)

Country:

Yugoslavia | USA

Language:

English | Latin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:U | West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:Approved (PCA #20294) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Disney Ranch, Santa Clarita, California, USA

Company:

Avala Film

Trivia:

Another rare movie where star Yul Brynner (in a few 'time lapsing' brief scenes) has a full head of hair.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The cossacks' "scalp-lock" is not on the back but the front! Only the old cossack is the one that has it correctly. Also Yul Brynner's scalp-lock is very unnatural. It looks like a pony tail and it has too much hair for being only the remaining hair from shaving the rest of the head.

Quotes:

Taras: My son, why? Why?
Andrei Bulba: I did what I had to do.
Taras: From the day I plunged you in the river to give you life, I loved you as I loved the steppes. You were my pride! I gave you life. It is on me to take it away from you.

Movie Connections:

Version of Tarass Boulba (1936)

Entertaining (but not in the "pampas")

I've seen the reviews here and a couple of comments set "Taras Bulba"'s location in the Argentine pampas. As a native Argentine I must say that's not correct; the pampas run all through the middle part of our Country but this film was shot in the Province of Salta way up in the northern part of Argentina (some 1400 miles from Buenos Aires); the pampas are a huge flat ground very fertile, but Salta is uneven with not too high hills ("cerros") very different from the pampas. Another reviewer says Tony Curtis declared once that when he and co-star Kristine Kaufmann got mixed up during the filming he was already divorced of Janet Leigh; I don't know about that but I can assure you that Leigh came to Salta with him (a friend of mine has a photo with her on the "cerros").

As to the picture, I really enjoyed it -also because I lived in Salta a couple of years and the landscape is very familiar to me- but I think a real classical epic could have come out of Nicolai Gogol's famous novel with a more elaborated script (as a reviewer correctly stated here).

J. Lee Thompson's product seems sort of "cheap" and lacks spectacle (except for some real good battle scenes) although I admit if has some very good moments. A somehow impressive one is when the big doors of the sieged city open slowly and André (Curtis) appears in a frontal close shot wearing a Polish armor and helmet for he will make a run for food too feed the starving citizens inside in a clear treason to his country and father for the love of a woman. Also the final dark atmosphere Thompson achieves when Taras (Yul Brynner) confronts his favourite son after a treason he can't possibly understand and even less when André just explains "I did what I had to do".

Brynner's performance though a little overacted is good enough and he fills the role of Taras easily. Tony Curtis makes a great effort and gets some good moments as André though he clearly lacks the appropriate "physic du rol". The rest of the cast gives a good support, among them Sam Wanamaker, Brad Dexter, Guy Rolfe and George MacReady. German actress Kristine Kauffman shows her beauty.

All in all "Taras Bulba" comes out as an entertaining and amusing film in its genre and a decent intent on Gogol's book, but no much more than that.