| Volga-Volga | |
|---|---|
 VHS cover |
|
| Directed by | Grigori Aleksandrov |
| Starring | Lyubov Orlova Igor Ilyinsky |
| Music by | Isaak Dunayevsky |
| Editing by | Yeva Ladyzhenskaya |
| Release date(s) | USSR 1938 May 16, 1941 |
| Running time | 104 min. |
| Country | USSR |
| Language | Russian |
| IMDb profile | |
Volga-Volga is a Russian comedy directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, released in 1938. It centres around a group of amateur performers on their way to Moscow to perform in a talent contest called the Moscow Musical Olympiad. Most of the action takes place on a steamboat traveling on the Volga River. The lead roles were played by Alexandrov's wife Lyubov Orlova and Igor Ilyinsky. The villain in the film is a corrupt bureaucrat, and thus at the end of the story, the characters sing to the audience that reporting such bureaucrats to allow for their removal is appropriate, and compare this action to using a mop. As this word, in the Russian language, was the same as "purge", and as Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Soviet Union at the time, this musical number serves as political propaganda in favour of the Great Purges. According to Lyubov Orlova, the name of the film is taken from popular Russian folk song, "Stenka Razin", that Alexandrov sang while rowing with Charlie Chaplin upon the San Francisco Bay. Chaplin jokingly suggested the words for a title of a movie, but Alexandrov took it seriously and named his new film "Volga-Volga"[1].
