Taras Bulba, 1962

Original title: Taras Bulba
Copyright: United Artists, 1962
Format: narrative feature
Carrier: DVD
Color: color
Length: 123”
Original language: Russian and Ukrainian
English subtitles: yes

Film crew
Director: J. Lee Thomson
Script writer: Waldo Salt and Karl Tunberg
Producer: Harold Hecht
Cinematographer: Joseph MacDonald
Composer: Franz Waxman
Editing: Folmar Blanksted, Willian Reynolds, Eda Warren, and Gene Milford

Film cast
Tony Curtis as Andrii Bulba
Yul Brynner as Taras Bulba
Sam Wanamaker as Pylypenko
Brad Dexter as Shylo
Guy Rolfe as Prince Hryhorii
Pery Lopex as Ostap Bulba

Synopsis.
From the synopsis at: http://imdb.com
A "Romeo and Juliet" story that takes place in the late 16 c. Ukraine. Taras has settled into comfortable farm life after years of adventures and swashbuckling with his cossack companions. Though not wealthy, he is able to send his son Andrii away to a Polish school. At this time the Poles are overlords of Ukraine and the origin of the cossacks is struggle of the Ukrainian serfs to free themselves and their land of Polish domination. Toward this end Taras hopes that his son will be educated in the ways of the enemy. Instead, Andrii falls in love with the daughter of a Polish nobleman, setting the stage for a clash between love, family honor, and a struggle for national identity.

Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University: A very “Hollywood” screen adaptation of the Mykola Hohol famous classic Taras Bulba, that has been since almost the beginning of cinematograph, an inspiration for filmmakers in many countries. Andrii, the son of a fiercely patriotic Ukrainian Cossack leader Taras Bulba falls hopelessly in love with a Polish noble woman setting a stage for a high drama based on a clash of ethnic and religions loyalties bound to fascinate the viewer. The film is overloaded with operatic posturing, clichés, stereotypes, and flat ignorance of Ukrainian and Polish cultures so unapologetic that it seems sweetly quaint. Yul Brynner’s and Tony Curtis’s interpretations of their roles have as much to do with Cossackdom as do the mountains of Argentina with the rolling plains of Ukraine. Yet at the time of its release even this simplistic and clichéd depiction of Ukraine was nothing short of a coup.