

22 votes
1968
1h 30m
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.
Directed by Nadezhda Kosheverova

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
Georgi Georgiu
"thick"
Lev Lemke
"thin"
Igor Dmitriev

Boris Lyoskin

Anatoli Abramov
contender for groom
Oleg Belov

Tatyana Gorlova

Kirill Gun

Vladimir Karpenko

Vladimir Kostin
Nikolay Kuzmin

Oskar Lind
Status
Released
Release date
December 31, 1968
Budget
—
Revenue
—
Language
Russian