Animated Soviet Propaganda - American Imperialist: Mister Twister (1/2)

Mister Twister, 1963, A. Karanovitch, Soyuzmultfilm Studio.
Based on the popular children's poem written in 1933 by Samuel Marshak
who is also credited with writing the script, "Mister Twister" tells the story
of a wealthy American who travels with his family to Leningrad for a
vacation. When he learns there are "guests of color" at the Angleterre hotel,
he cancels his reservation. The concierge calls ahead to all other hotels in
Leningrad and advises them not to give the American racist and his family a
room. Mr. Twister returns to the Angleterre, and after spending the night in
the lobby decides he has overcomes his prejudices. During the USSR school
children regularly memorized the Marshak poem.

Sonia Marshak. M.D. (Scientist): My great grandfather was a poet, satirist,
and outstanding translator of English literature -- Shakespeare, Burns, Keats,
Blake, Wordsworth, and Kipling among others. He founded, in 1920, one of
the first children's theaters in the Soviet Union, and wrote plays for it.
Highly effective in persuading gifted writers and artists to write for children,
he also headed the Children's Section of the State Publishing house. During
the years of the Stalin terror, the Section came under attack for its alleged
bourgeois leanings. Members the group were accused of being associated
with "Samuel Marshak, Enemy of the People." They were interrogated,
killed, and sent to labor camps in Siberia and the Arctic.

Julian Lowenfeld (translator): The animated film, made in the 60s, differs
from the original poem, written in the 30s, in several curious ways. First of
all, in the original poem, little Susan announces:
I'm going to eat nothing but caviar black,
And catch real live sturgeons in handfuls!
On the banks of the Volga
I'll ride in a troika
I'll run round collective farms
With nothing but raspberries heaped in my arms!
Although Marshak is credited with the screenplay, we do not know why
Susie's motives for visiting Russia were omitted from the film. Did the
censors in Brezhnev's "era of stagnation" feel that an American millionaire's
daughter supposedly wanting to visit the Soviet Union to pick raspberries at
a collective farm sound so absurd it would seem satirical?
Another curious twist to the Mr. Twister Film is the behavior of the
concierge of the Angleterre. In the film, he plays an active part in teaching
Mr. Twister a lesson about proletarian solidarity and the costs of intolerance,
by phoning all the other hotels in town and telling them not to give Mr.
Twister a room (even though rooms are available). But in the original
poem, the concierge does no such thing--rooms truly are unavailable
anywhere else, because Leningrad is full of foreign tourists in town for
an international congress.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• animated
• soviet
• propaganda

[spacehelmetforacow]

The moral of the story: Don't be a racist, or communist hotels will all conspire against letting you have a room.

[commissarusa]

I like how they made the subtitles rhyme too. that's awesome.

[RivieraByBuick]

@commissarusa that`s because the poem has been translated and issued in various languages

[Threetails]

@Bystander81 No big surprise. When the Soviet Union went under the anti-communist sentiment made it a haven for neo-nazis.

Kind of like Idaho.

[am1966ath]

@spacehelmetforacow Hotel standard in the soviet union was awful..and there were quite a lot of racism in the soviet union, the world last big Empire...with 100 nationalities, most of which didn t feel themselves russian at all.

[acb1511]

@TVZombie3000 The rhyme i of course know))))

[TVZombie3000]

@acb1511 this was written by Marshak, the famous children's book writer. Mister Twister is the classic of his work, even if it is pure propaganda. You must be pretty young if you never saw this cartoon. I saw it many times when I was growing up in the 80s. It was one of my faves.

[acb1511]

@Bystander81 Afghans heve nothing to do with arabs, definitely. It is quiet the same as Chechens, Georgians or any other people like that.

A mountain tribial society, nothig similar.

[acb1511]

The rhyme is silly, even despide being witten for younger school age, and the cartoon is simply worthless.

Not owndering I neve saw this as kid.

Greets from USSR.

[anexmachina]

Mirá que le pongo voluntad, ¡pero no se ve nada, amigo!

[Bystander81]

@moodyarcticfox Communist Russia was in the business of mass killing arabs long before we got there.

[moodyarcticfox]

@Bystander81 no, i think you should discuss it with those guys who pissed on corpses of arabs they just killed.