Films with Different Dubbings — Part 1

Many people enjoy watching films — some prefer the original audio, others like the dubbing tradition that has existed in the Russian-speaking world for nearly a century. But few people realize that some films were released with multiple different dubbings. The reasons varied, but the fact remains. And today I decided to talk about a few such films — all of them made in the Soviet Union.

1. The Arrows of Robin Hood (1975)

In 1975, the film The Arrows of Robin Hood was made, based on the legends about this brave champion of justice (though in reality, if he existed at all, he was most likely just a common outlaw). Robin Hood is a very popular cinematic character, and over the years the role of Robin has been played by actors such as Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe.

In the Soviet version, Robin of Loxley was portrayed by the excellent Boris Khmelnitskiy, who to this day seems to me to be one of the very best on-screen incarnations of this noble outlaw.

According to the original casting, the role of the jester in the film was given to Vladimir Vysotskiy, who wrote six ballads специально for the movie:

• Ballad of Time
• Ballad of the Free Archers
• Ballad of Hatred
• Ballad of Brief Happiness
• Ballad of Love
• Ballad of Struggle

However, Vladimir Vysotskiy himself was unable to appear in the film, and given the authorities’ ambivalent attitude toward him at the time, the director of the Riga Film Studio — where the movie was shot — was strongly advised not to use Vysotsky’s music in the picture. As a result, the film was released with music by Raimonds Pauls and only a couple of songs, with lyrics by a completely different author — Lev Prozorovsky.

Five years later, in 1980, Vladimir Vysotskiy passed away. And in 1982, the film The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe was released, directed by the same filmmaker, Sergey Tarasov. Robin Hood appears in this film as well, along with several other characters from the earlier movie. Because of that, the film is sometimes even considered a continuation of The Arrows of Robin Hood, although The Ballad is actually based on Walter Scott’s historical novel.

But in this film, Sergey Tarasov managed to include several of Vladimir Vysotskiy’s ballads that he had not been allowed to use in the earlier movie. Not all of them fit the story, since these are not just songs but true ballads with deep meaning.

By 1987, Perestroika was already in full swing in the USSR. You could speak openly about almost anything, and erasing Vysotskiy from the cultural landscape was no longer “fashionable.” So, for Vladimir Vysotskiy’s 50th anniversary, television aired the director’s cut of The Arrows of Robin Hood, restoring all of the bard’s ballads in place of Raimonds Pauls’s music — exactly as the film’s musical concept had originally been intended.

From that point on, the film officially exists in two versions: the theatrical release and the “director’s” version. At the same time, the movie itself is shot in a very unhurried manner — by today’s standards, I’d even call it ponderous. During a long Vysotskiy ballad, the camera might linger for five full minutes on characters simply sitting under a tree and staring toward the viewer. And while listening to a ballad at least gives you the lyrics to engage with, watching those same scenes set to generic instrumental music becomes rather tiresome.

That said, Vysotskiy’s ballads here are outstanding.

To give a concrete example of the difference, I found two closely related excerpts. The first is the song “There Are Many White Birds Above the Earth” from the theatrical version of the film:

In the director’s cut, this scene is set to Vladimir Vysotskiy’s “Ballad of Love”:

2. The Red Tent (1969)

In the USSR, co-productions were sometimes made — and not only with countries of the socialist bloc. The Red Tent was the first joint film that was financed by the West: it was produced by the USSR together with Italy.

Yes, Soviet audiences were not spoiled with films featuring Western stars, so many of those names were not widely known at the time. But today they certainly are. Suffice it to say that the film starred — ta-da! — Sir Sean Connery and Claudia Cardinale (along with several other foreign actors).

If you’ve never seen this film, I highly recommend it. It tells the story of General Nobile’s Arctic expedition aboard an airship, but from an unconventional perspective. The events and the causes of the disaster are recounted by the participants themselves — both the survivors and the dead. They seem to gather in some kind of hall, where they collectively discuss how it could have happened, sometimes even accusing one another. There are discrepancies with the real historical events, but the film is still a remarkable and deeply psychological piece.

But today, we’re talking specifically about dubbing.

The director was the legendary Mikhail Kalatozov (True Friends, The Cranes Are Flying). This was his final film — he died in 1973 at the age of 69.

The picture exists in two versions: the Soviet cut and the international cut. And they differ not only in dubbing, but also in the edit. The Soviet version is longer — two and a half hours versus 2 hours and 1 minute for the international one. What’s more, the international cut reached theaters four months earlier than the Soviet release. That difference in timing is likely connected to the second distinction — the music. According to the composer of the Soviet version, Aleksandr Zatsepin, they were running behind with the recording, and the Italian producer didn’t want to wait, arguing that delays meant losing money. So he produced his own musical score in order to get the film on screens as quickly as possible.

This explanation — “that’s why there are two versions” — is the one you’ll find everywhere across the Russian-speaking internet. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but one detail makes me skeptical. The international version’s music was written by… Ennio Morricone. One of the most legendary film composers ever (he scored almost all the famous spaghetti westerns, The Professional, Once Upon a Time in America, and many, many others). And it’s hard to believe he wrote a full film score in a mad rush simply because “the Russians didn’t make it in time.” It seems entirely plausible that the Italians had planned this from the start — and that the “they didn’t have time” story was invented later as a justification (and it’s not even certain the Italians were the ones who came up with it).

Nevertheless, this wonderful film exists in two quite different versions — and not only because of the music.

For comparison, here is the love theme for the film, written by Ennio Morricone:

And an equally wonderful piece — “The Seashore”, composed by Aleksandr Zatsepin for the Soviet version:

I honestly don’t even know which version got luckier.

Continuation: Films with Different Dubbings — Part 2