The Adventures of Buratino

The Adventures of Buratino (Russian: Приключения Буратино; Belarussian: Прыгоды Бураціна) is a Soviet children's musical film, made in 1975 at Belarusfilm.

Directed by Leonid Nechayev, the film was an adaptation of The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino by Alexey Tolstoy in turn an adaptation of Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Inna Vetkina wrote the screenplay for The Adventures of Buratino, as well as several other films directed by Nechayev.

The plot of the film follows Buratino (Italian for "puppet"), a boy made of wood, who meets the children of Karabas Barabas' theatre and sets out to free them. In order to do so, he needs to unravel the mystery of a golden key given by the turtle Tortila. Characters such as Harlequin and Pierrot, who act in the children's theatre are part of commedia dell'arte.

Music for the film was composed by Alexey Rybnikov and the lyricists included Bulat Okudzhava, and Yuri Entin. There was an early interest by the director Nechayev to work with Yuli Kim (then writing under the last name Mikhailov) as a songwriter. At that time, Yuli Kim was banned from television, so they turned to Okudzhava. Okudzhava wrote music as well as lyrics, though only the music of Rybnikov was used in the film. The songs that Okudzhava wrote were serious and philosophical, so Nechayev also incorporated lyrics by Yuri Entin and omitted some of Okudzhava's.

Almost all of the children who acted in the film were from Minsk. Dima Iosifov played Buratino. The adults in the cast were famous actors from the rest of the Soviet Union. Nikolai Grinko played Papa Carlo. Vladimir Etush played Karabas Barabas. Rina Zelyonaya played the turtle Tortila. Rolan Bykov played the cat Bazilio.

A number of musical children's films followed, by the makers of The Adventures of Buratino, including About the Little Red Riding Hood (Ольга Береснева) in 1977.

Plot
The old carpenter Giuseppe, nicknamed the "Blue Nose" comes across a log, from which he is going to make a leg for the table. The log was beeping in a human voice, and Giuseppe presented it to his friend, the organ-grinder, Carlo, to carve a wooden doll. Carlo made a doll, calling it Pinocchio.

At first, Pinocchio behaves frivolously: he throws a hammer at the Talking Cricket and almost dies in the teeth of Shushary's rat. Papa Carlo saves him, and Pinocchio promises to reform and go to school. To buy the alphabet, Carlo had already sold his one and only jacket.

The next morning, Pinocchio leaves for school, but along the way he hears music inviting the audience to perform a puppet show, sells the alphabet for four soldi and buys a ticket to the theater. During the performance, Pinocchio intervenes in the fight of Harlequin and Pierrot. Puppets dance with him, but the director of the puppet theater, Karabas-Barabas, removes Pinocchio from the stage and hangs on a nail.

At this time, Duremar, the seller of medicinal leeches, quarrels with the tortoise Tortila, and she swears that she will not give anyone the golden key that brings happiness. Karabas learns from Pinocchio about the hearth drawn on canvas in Carlo’s closet and gives him five gold coins, having ordered him to return home in the morning and give money to Carlo, provided that he does not leave his closet. Dolls understand that there is some kind of secret. Pinocchio on the way meets with two scammers - a fox Alice and a cat Basilio. They offer Pinocchio to go to the Land of Fools to get rich.

At night, Alice and Basilio attack Pinocchio under the guise of robbers, but Pinocchio hides coins in his mouth, and to extract them, scammers hang him upside down on a tree and go behind a saw to cut Pinocchio. He is discovered by Malvina, a girl with blue hair who escaped from Karabas-Barabas with her poodle Artemon and settled in the forest. She orders to remove it from the tree. Dr. Owl, paramedic Toad and folk medicine man Mantis prescribe Pinocchio castor. Malvina is trying to teach Pinocchio arithmetic and calligraphy, but to no avail. In punishment for the indulgence of Malvina, she ordered Pinocchio to be put in a dark closet, Artemon enforces the order. Meanwhile, Pierrot secretly eavesdrops on the conversation between Karabas-Barabas and Duremar. It turns out that the tortoise Tortila hides Golden Key at the bottom of the pond. Carabas notices that Pierrot is eavesdropping on them and, together with Duremar, rushes to search for him.

The Bat indicates Pinocchio exit from the closet and leads to the fox Alice and the cat Basilio, with whom he comes to the Field of Miracles, which looks like a garbage dump - a city dump (the way it is). Pinocchio buries five gold on it, and waits for the money tree to grow. Fox Alice informs the police about Pinocchio, who is sitting in the wasteland, who throw him in a pond, where he meets the tortoise Tortila. She gives him the Golden Key.

On the way home, Pinocchio meets Pierrot. It turns out that Karabas-Barabas hired a group of police bulldogs in the Land of Fools and sent them to chase him. Pinocchio takes Malvina, Pierrot and Artemon into the cave. Karabas and Duremar go to the Three Minnows' tavern. Pinocchio hides and learns the secret of the Golden Key: a secret door is located behind the drawn hearth in Carlo's closet.

In the tavern, the fox Alice and the cat Basilio promise Duremar and Karabas that they will give them Pinocchio for ten gold coins. Karabas breaks the jug where Pinocchio was hiding, but he runs away. At the edge of the forest, police dogs were defeated by Artemon, and Pinocchio, with the help of Papa Carlo and Giuseppe, who had just arrived in time to search for Pinocchio everywhere, defeated Carabas-Barabas.

In the closet, Carlo Pinocchio reveals a secret to his friends. He removes the canvas, behind him is the door that Pinocchio opened with the Golden Key. Papa Carlo, Giuseppe, Pinocchio, Malvina, Pierrot, Artemon and Harlequin pass through the door. For Karabas-Barabas, the door becomes closed. Secret passage leads the heroes to the stage of the theater.

Cast

 * Dima Iosifov - Buratino, the protagonist and the story's version of Pinocchio.
 * Nikolai Grinko - Papa Carlo, the story's version of Geppetto.
 * Yuriy Katin-Yartsev - Dzhuzeppe-Sizy Nos, the story's version of Mastro Antonio
 * Vladimir Etush - Karabas-Barabas, the story's Stromboli character.
 * Rolan Bykov - Basilio the Cat, a version of the Cat.
 * Elena Sanaeva - Alice the Fox, a version of the Fox.
 * Rina Zelyonaya - Tortila, a wise, old turtle who helps Buratino.
 * Tatyana Protsenko - Malvina
 * Vladimir Basov - Duremar
 * Baadur Tsuladze - Eating-house owner
 * Roman Stolkarts - Piero
 * Thomas Augustinas - Artemon
 * Grigori Svetlorusov - Arlekin