Il romanzo di un ladro di cavalli

In circa 1904 Polish Russia, the Czar has tasked Cossack Captain Stoloff (Yul Brynner) with requisitioning all of the horses he can for use in the Russo-Japanese War. This puts him at odds with a local group of Jewish peasants, led by Kifke (Eli Wallach), who trade in stolen horses. Brash young horse thief Zanvill (Oliver Tobias) is the most accomplished of the lot, and while that makes him a target for Stoloff, it doesn't help when Zanvill begins a romance with local noblewoman Naomi (Jane Birkin), just returned from France with revolutionary ideals.

This was scripted by David Opatoshu, and based on a novel by his father, a famous Yiddish writer. Opatoshu should be familiar to anyone who watched any television from the 1960's. This movie plays like a mash-up of two other 1971 releases, Fiddler on the Roof and Nicholas & Alexandra, and lacquered in a Tom Jones veneer. Oliver Tobias is the lead (he gets an "introducing" credit), and he was a noted theater star in Great Britain at the time. Both he and Birkin get overshadowed when any of their more notable co-stars are on screen, and the cast is unusual. Brynner and Wallach get to relive their Magnificent Seven days, while Lainie Kazan and Serge Gainsbourg seem dropped in from another planet.

A little knowledge of Polish history makes this movie a lot more meaningful, and abandon any idea that it is romantic in the way we think of the word today. Those caveats aside, this is a neglected film from 1971 that holds up quite well. The hyper-masculine Yul Brynner is the star in every sense, swaggering his way through as the Cossack who has been put in charge of the Polish town of Mlawa. Meanwhile the Jewish residents of a nearby shtetl plot and scheme to steal horses and defy the Russian authorities. A Polish gentleman of the upper class wants to marry his daughter off to a French dandy, while she falls for one of the Jewish horsethieves. Mind you, this is a time when Poland had been wiped off the map, and the Germans and the Russians were vying for their piece of the country. Favorite scene: Yul Brynner in a brothel drinking champagne and then chewing up the glass. Favorite line: "Polish peasants can't read, and the Jewish peasants won't."

Although I would like to give stars to Eli Wallach, the best in the cast and a great actor in other films like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966), "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) and others, Yul Brynner, also excellent in many other films, "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "Morituri" (1965), ""Westworld" (1973) and many others, and Serge Gainsbourg for the extraordinary music he composed throughout his musical career, not for this film and not as an actor. The three of them were also the reason why I wanted to see the film, which turned out to be just a waste of an hour and 39 minutes, which is the length of the version I found on YouTube. Everything is lamentable in this production, the idea, the script, the direction, the acting. Why would the Russian army need horses in the war against Japan, which is an island, as the character Schloime Kradnik played by David Opatoshu also says? Most likely to eat them, not to ride them across the sea.

I'm at a loss to see how "unsubstantial" is a negative value in a comedy. Possibly the previous reviewer was more interested in director Polonsky's story than the movie.

I have always loved this film. It's one of those humanistic little gems like "Going In Style," "The Trouble With Harry'"and "Bye, Bye, Braverman." I first saw the film in 1971 and have remembered it with pleasure ever since. Fair warning: the DVD is a poor quality transfer, apparently from a VHS, with no digital enhancements. But the film is a delight and well worth your time. Lainie Kazan does, indeed, steal the show but Yul Brynner gives his Cossack a touch of gentle sadness in one of his rare restrained performances, while still offering a necessary bravado. Eli Wallach is excellent and David Opatashu displays great comic timing in the (very satisfying) finale as he impersonates a Cossack Inpector General.

It's safe to assume that, even among casual film buffs, the fate of Abraham Polonsky is arguably better known than his actual cinematic works are since his is arguably the most notorious case of the impact that the Red Scare/HUAC hearings of the late 1940s had on a promising Hollywood career. After writing the seminal boxing drama BODY AND SOUL (1947), Polonsky stepped into the director's chair for the first (and, for the next 21 years, only) directorial effort with the marvelous noir FORCE OF EVIL (1948); incidentally, both these movies starred an even more fatal casualty of that Communist purge, John Garfield – who died a mere 4 years later at just 39 years of age. The political climate in Hollywood changed over the years and, by the end of the 1960s, Polonsky was able to officially work again, both as writer – on Don Siegel's MADIGAN (1968) – and, more importantly, as a director – on the acclaimed Revisionist Western TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE (1969) and the much lighter ROMANCE OF A HORSETHIEF. As it turned out, Polonsky's directorial stint still proved short-lived as he was advised, for medical reasons, not to undertake any more strenuous projects! Equally ironic is the fact that, while on the Italian-language TV print I watched the opening credits clearly state that one is about to see "an Abraham Polonsky film", the actual credited director has an unpronounceable Yugoslavian name!!

On original release, the film under review seems to have been quite well-received by critics but the public stayed away and, while this may have surprised Polonsky himself, in hindsight I'd say it was just too old-fashioned and inconsequential for its own good. Or perhaps it was simply overshadowed by Norman Jewison's 3-hour musical FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (1971) – which similarly deals with the trials and tribulations of Jewish Poles in a war-torn society in a light-hearted fashion. The cast list was certainly impressive: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, David Opatoshu (who also penned the script based on his father's novel), Henri Serre, Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg, Oliver Tobias (his first starring role) and Marilu' Tolo. But it's Lainie Kazan who steals the show as the lusty, busty brothel madam who seduces Russian Captain Brynner to keep him away from his duty of pursuing her intended, horsethief Wallach; the sequence where cross-dressed Wallach and Tobias attempt to spring three horses hidden inside the brothel unbeknownst to drunken Brynner is the film's comic highlight. Meanwhile, peasant Opatoshu's son Tobias romances wealthy liberal Birkin who, in turn, is engaged to clumsy French gentleman (Gainsbourg, who else?). This enjoyable but ultimately unsubstantial film also boasts a fine score by Mort Shuman and attractive cinematography by Piero Portalupi.