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| Images courtesy of Mosfilm |
The distinctly American period Western action-adventure film
involving cowboys on horseback navigating ranches and small towns fending off criminals
and corrupt lawman in between vast vistas of the countryside gave rise to
several subgenres including but not limited to the Italian based Spaghetti
Western and more recently the Contemporary Western. However there’s one variation that remains
overlooked in the country which influenced it’s inception: the Soviet
Ostern. An answer of sorts to the
American Western, the Ostern fell into two subcategories: Red Westerns and Easterns. While the Red Westerns were typically set in
America despite approaching the saga with a different subset of goggles,
Easterns (Osterns) were set within the USSR during the Russian Revolution or
the Russian Civil War of 1917 bearing trademarks of the American Western despite
being distinctly Soviet.
One of the high watermarks of the Ostern subgenre is the
Soviet youth action-adventure trilogy of The Elusive Avengers ranging
from 1967 to 1971. Starting off as a
loose reinterpretation of Pavel Blyakhin’s 1921 novel Red Devils which
itself became a popular Soviet adventure film in 1923, the screenplay co-written
by Sergei Yermolinsky and Armenian director Edmond Keosayan concerns a group of
four teenagers who become heroes of the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. Among the four kids was an outsider whose
ethnicity was changed from text to screen twice, originating as a Chinese
circus acrobat before changing him to a black youth in the 1923 film and again
to that of a gypsy for what became the first of a trilogy of action-adventure
films. While the first is a more straight-laced
adaptation of Red Devils, the subsequent features following the
misadventures of the quartet of The Elusive Avengers branch off in their
own directions separate from the text including involving hiring the titular
heroes to safeguard the Crown of the Russian Empire.
Besides being an overtly Russian borne Western or Ostern to
be more precise, The Elusive Avengers films also bear a proto-Young
Guns distinction for being among the earliest examples of the gunslinging
Western to feature primarily young characters taking center stage. Opening and closing on a recurring vista of
the foursome on horseback riding off into a deep red sunset silhouetted against
original theme music from Spring on Zarechnaya Street composer Boris
Mokrousov, the films then switch over to Incorrigible Liar composer Yan
Frenkel for the next two entries. Filmed
in Sovscope 2.35:1 35mm widescreen first by Dersu Uzala cinematographer
Fyodor Dobronravov before switching to Two Comrades Served cameraman
Mikhail Ardabyevsky, the trilogy incorporates elements of the musical, the period
war film, the youth experience and serve as an Eastern European answer to the
American Western with its own distinctive patina and sound.
In the first The Elusive Avengers from 1967, our
subset of characters meet in May 1920. Danka
Shchus (Viktor Kosykh), son of a Red revolutionary sailor, watches his father
die by the sword of White Army warlord Sidor Lyuty before he and his sister
Ksanka (Valentina Kurdyukova) join forces with former schoolboy Valerka
(Mikhail Metyolkin) and Yaskha the Gypsy (Vasily Vasilyev) seeking vengeance. Dubbing themselves Avengers, at night the
foursome find themselves righting wrongs including but not limited to
interfering on the behalf of peasants living in the area such as driving cattle
back to the villages they belong to, leaving their calling card The Elusive
Avengers wherever they go. Soon
their paths cross with none other than than Sidor Lyuty who captures Ksanka and
spurns a rescue operation eventually involving real-life Commander Semyon
Budyonny (Lev Sverdlin) in an all out game of deception and eventual trading of
fire leading to the titular Elusive Avengers ascension into the Red
Army.
A year later from 1968, director Keosayan and his cast of Elusive
Avengers return for the aptly named The New Adventures of the Elusive
Avengers, picking up where the last film left off with the foursome
inducted into the Red Army fighting off Baron Wrangel’s White Guards. Learning of a map of fortifications in
Crimea, the Red Army tasks the Elusive Avengers with infiltrating the
fort to steal the map, disguising themselves on a fishing boat with Danka playing
a shoe shiner and Valerka pretending to be a monarchist nobleman. However, the Red agent sent as their chaperone
is killed off right away, leaving them hung out in the lurch in an increasingly
dangerous situation of deceit and quick drawing of the pistol. Soon the battle for the map intensifies with
characters getting recognized and jailed while Buba Kastorsky (Boris Sichkin),
a supporting character from the previous film now a pop singer and dancer, joins
in their crusade to steal it and transport it to the army.
Circa 1971, Keosayan and crew returned once more for the
third and final entry dubbed The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again
the Elusive Avengers, this time literally involving the end of the Civil
War with the characters now officially branded Cheka agents after a successful
mission stealing the map from the previous film. Tiring of the profession of warring and
crimefighting, the foursome expresses interest in pursuing college
studies. However, they’re called in for
one last mission involving the Crown of the Russian Empire and a group of White
Russian emigres keen on infiltrating the Soviet Union and stealing the Crown
from the museum. Adversaries from the
previous films conspire together in a joint effort to steal the crown. However, all ties lead back to French
politician Monsieur Duc (Andrei Fajt) who is influencing the events unfolding
with a plan to pilfer and sell off the crown to the Americans for money,
culminating in a final decisive battle between Prussian army captain Ovechkin
(Armen Dzhigarkhanyan), Lt. Perov (Vladimir Ivashov) and the remaining Elusive
Avengers.
With all three films digitally restored in 4K UHD on Mosfilm’s
channel subtitled in English, featuring the screen talents of Welcome or No
Trespassing child star Viktor Kosykh in the role of Danka, Vasiliy Vasilev
as the Gypsy Yashka, Valentina Kurdyukova as the sole female avenger of the
group and The Girl and the Bugler star Mikhail Metyolkin as Valerka. Comedian Saveliy Kramarov shows up in the
first two films while Ballad of a Soldier actor Gennadiy Yukhtin plays
the bandit Ignat. Boris Sichkin who went
on to play Brezhnev in Oliver Stone’s Nixon also plays an important role
as an entertainer who becomes an integral ally to The Elusive Avengers. While an ensemble piece, a key characteristic
of all three films involves young kids taking on military missions vanquishing enemies
twice their size and respective ages.
Looking at them years later, now recently digitally restored,
The Elusive Avengers films remain at once wholly unique and original
pieces of Soviet Osterns but also function as one of the few late-60s youth
action-adventure films. The idea of
putting teenagers into the roles of tough quick-thinking fighters for the Red Army
in a series of distinctly Soviet Russian answers to the American Western
remains as bold and fresh now as it was when first introduced in 1967. Though the story has undergone some subtle
changes along the way, namely revising the ethnicity of the Gypsy character, Edmond
Keosayan’s trilogy of Osterns are something of a Russian expression of Sergio
Leone, John Ford or even Anthony Mann.
While from the other side of the pond with key characteristics only
Russian viewers will fully appreciate, The Elusive Avengers trilogy
nevertheless is an engaging and entertaining saga of action-adventure films
which look and sound like no other Western you’ve seen before.
--Andrew Kotwicki
