How Robinson Was Created

The film is based on the feuilleton of the same name by I. Ilf and E. Petrov. A writer named Moldovantsev delivers a thrilling Soviet‐style Robinson Crusoe adventure on deadline, only to have his editor insist on adding a local party chairman, freed ex‐members, an activist collector, a housing committee and even a meeting table, bell and ledger washed ashore. Reluctantly he complies, so far that he jettisons Robinson himself as an unjustified weakling, transforming his novel into an absurd manifesto of bureaucratic excess.

Director: Eldar Ryazanov, Eduard Abalov

Cast: Anatoliy Papanov, Sergei Filippov, Pavel Tarasov, Georgiy Kulikov, Pyotr Repnin, Igor Sretensky

Audience-only score — full critic data not yet in the ReelXO vault.