Little Red Riding Hood: the Soviet version

My wife has a few DVDs of Soviet-era films for children that she shows our kids. A lot of them really are wonderful, especially comedies involving a trio of incompetent criminals: the Exprienced Man, the Fool, and the Coward. (See here, here, and here. Or, to watch one, see here and here.)

Then there are the films whose politics verge on overwhelming the childlike nature of the film. Today, for example, while preparing for work, I heard a wonderful song by a girl. I looked at the TV, and saw a man in priest's clothing, talking with a girl in a red hat. I asked my wife what the film was, and she said it was the story of Little Red Riding Hood… or actually, Little Red Riding Hood's life after the original story, "as interpreted by the director."

I guess that's the wolf? I asked.

Yes—well, actually, one of his children, my wife explained.

Ah! So Soviet cinema anticipated American television by three or four decades…