A Very Old Story

A Very Old Story — Plot

Based on the famous fairytale "The Tinderbox" by Hans Christian Andersen. The main character of the film is a puppeteer who lives in a poor and gray world. He composes a fairy tale in which he himself, in the guise of a brave soldier, finds a flint and is helped by a kind wizard. The soldier falls in love with a spoiled, capricious princess who, as befits a princess, poses riddles to her numerous suitors. Her father, the king, is eager to see the soldier as her husband, as he believes the soldier has a great deal of gold. In the fairy tale, everything ends well, but in real life, not so much. "But life is not a fairy tale," his beloved girl says to him as she bids him farewell.

• Release date
• December 31, 1968
• Runtime
• 90 min
• Genres
• Family, Fantasy
• Director
• Nadezhda Kosheverova

A Very Old Story — Cast

Oleg Dal Soldier / Puppet master Marina Neyolova Princess / innkeeper's daughter Vladimir Etush King / Innkeeper Georgiy Vitsin good wizard Vera Titova witch / davil's grandmother Viktor Perevalov Prince-chimney sweep Georgiy Shtil Eastern Prince Anatoly Korolkevich doorman