Capt. Grant's Family (1938)
"Deti kapitana Granta" (original title)

The son and daughter of a lost-at-sea captain recruit help to find him on the basis of an incomplete note found in a bottle, and encounter adventures in Patagonia, Australia, and New Zealand...

Directors:

Vladimir Vaynshtok, David Gutman

Writers:

Oleg Leonidov, Jules Verne (novel)

Stars:

Nikolai Cherkasov, Yakov Segel, Olga Bazarova

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Nikolai Cherkasov	...	Jacques Paganel
Yakov Segel	...	Robert Grant
Olga Bazarova	...	Mary Grant (as O. Bazarova)
David Gutman	...	MacNabs
Mariya Strelkova	...	Elena Glenarvan
Mikhail Romanov	...	Captain John Mangles (as M. Romanov)
Nikolai Vitovtov	...	Edward Glenarvan
Ivan Chuvelyov	...	Ayerton (as I. Chuvelev)
A. Adelung	...	Talkav
Nikolai Michurin	...	Innkeeper
Yuri Yuryev	...	Captain Tom Grant (as Yu Yuryev)

Storyline

The son and daughter of a lost-at-sea captain recruit help to find him on the basis of an incomplete note found in a bottle, and encounter adventures in Patagonia, Australia, and New Zealand...

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Plot Keywords:

patagonia | australia | new zealand | travel | message in a bottle | 

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Genres:

Adventure

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

11 January 1939 (USA)

Also Known As:

Captain Grant's Children

Company Credits

Production Co:

Gosudarstvennoe Upravlenie Kinematografii i fotografii (GUKF), Mosfilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Version of In Search of the Castaways (1962)

User Reviews

Soviet movie-making in its finest

What a wonderful, amazing film! It's black and white and grainy (what did you expect from 1936?), but that doesn't matter at all. No film I ever seen comes even close. It has such a great sense of joy and romantic and adventure, it's so morally uplifting that I can't praise it enough. In addition to that, the movie is so innocent and optimistic that I can't think of a better children's film.

Great actors - I mean, all of them, though I especially liked Paganel, perfect score (by Prokofiev himself, no less!), to the point that "The Uverture for Deti Kapitana Granta" gets ordered quite often on modern FM radio stations - after 70 years! Great songs too ("Oh, Wind of Travel, sing us songs of where you came from", "There once lived a captain brave", etc. Engaging plotline (by Jules Verne), in which daring family of Captain Grant seeks their lost father circumnavigating the globe at 37 deg. South latitude... and so much more!

The only complaint today's viewer may have is dated special effects and not exactly slick stock fotage inserts... But you know what? Who ever notices that when the movie is so great!

I doubt that you can easily find it outside of Russia, but if you even don't find the film itself, do yourself a favour and trace film's soundtrack.