Lenfilm: Striped Trip (1961) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Lenfilm

Don Tale director Vladimir Fetin’s 1961 family adventure comedy film Striped Trip is something of a precursor to Noel Marshall’s catastrophic and chaotic Roar.  A film prominently featuring big cats (namely tigers and a lion) maneuvering the sets with human actors frantically trying to get out of the way or barricade themselves, the Soviet family comedy though goofy and silly is rooted in Russian circus theater with real-life tiger-tamer Margarita Nazarova taking center staged.  Ushered in by Nikita Khrushchev after a chance meeting with Nazarova and featuring Gentlemen of Fortune and Kin-dza-dza! actor Yevgeny Leonov just inches away from a real tiger, it is the kind of highly dangerous yet harmless to watch screen entertainments to come out of Eastern Europe with some viewership in the west regarding the whole thing as a satire of Soviet lifestyle.  Whatever the case, you rarely see this many big cats gathered together onscreen with human actors for a Russian film that became a top box office performer in its heyday.

 
Cook Gleb Shuleykin (Yevgeny Leonov) is trying to hitch a ride off of a hot tropical spot he’s stuck on and finds a way out after accepting a job to look after a ship and its cargo.  However, after saying yes he finds out to his horror the cargo consists of eleven tigers and one lion kept in cages to be fed occasionally.  Meanwhile chief mate Oleg Petrovich (Ivan Dmitriyev) is getting embroiled in ongoing arguments with Marianna (Margarita Nazarova) over her petty games and tricks she plays on the crew.  Things seem to operate routine as normal until a chimpanzee that’s part of the cargo runs amok and proceeds to free all the big cats from their cages, creating a crisis for Shuleykin who finds himself staring down a tiger’s jaws from the bathtub.  Chaos ensues with the shipmates running for their lives.  Still, not all hope is lost when Marianna stumbles out of her room to find the tigers running about which she, despite initial fears, takes charge of immediately herding all the animals together and grooming them as her own with the oversized animals complying obediently.

 
Primarily a showcase for renowned and popular Margarita Nazarova to handle big cats after Khrushchev took the Emperor of Ethiopia to the circus and complained a film wasn’t yet made about her, Striped Trip though a family comedy is partially based on truth.  Written by Alexey Kapler and Victor Konetsky who was a professional sailor and ship captain, Konetsky himself had an experience where his vessel was transporting three bears which escaped their cages and ran about the ship.  Though they finally got the animals back under their control, the scenario struck Konetsky as worthy of a script.  Bringing the idea to Lenfilm and also Nazarova and circus artist and animal trainer husband Konstantin Konstantinovsky, the film went into production budgeted around 15 million rubles.  Though it was a difficult shoot with many urban legends surrounding it, the film boasts lovely cinematography by The Meek One cameraman Dmitry Meskhiev and a playful family-oriented soundtrack by The Arrows of Robin Hood composer Venyamin Basner.

 
Using their own tigers from their own circus troupe, Nazarova and Konstantinovsky serving as a stunt double in certain scenes including holding onto a tiger’s tail all but fully committed to the project and spent two months of training the animals on the Matros Zhelezniak cargo ship in Leningrad while much of the rest of the film was shot on the Black Sea in between fully furnished soundstages at Lenfilm.  Reportedly the lion didn’t get along with the other tigers so his scenes were shot separately, meanwhile the chimpanzee was supplied by the Kyiv Zoo along with its mate as the animal wouldn’t act onscreen without her nearby.  Directing animals is tricky business but somehow or another Nazarova and crew pulled it off.

 
Though a huge box office success, taking leadership in Soviet ticket sales, Striped Trip was not without its controversies and/or urban legends with some alleging a glass plate was used to separate Yevgeny Leonov from the tiger in the infamous bath scene.  A short documentary Attention, Tigers! came out with the oversight of cinematographer Dmitry Meskhiev shed more light on the production but didn’t do much to dispel the myths initially.  Another myth involved the director ordering one of the lions to be killed because it refused to take sleeping pills.  Most of these rumors were negated years later but they only added to the Roar-like sense of disorder and a lack of control on set.  Only one story was partially true involving a tiger escaping the set into nearby territory, a situation quickly remedied by Nazarova’s swift response.  In spite of all of this, on its terms this animals-running-amok comedy is comparatively a much more enjoyable, cohesive and easier watch than the aforementioned infamous Noel Marshall ‘movie’.  Rare to see this kind of man vs nature family flick coming out of the Soviet Union.

--Andrew Kotwicki