Taras Bulba

Faith and a good Sabre arm.

Taras Bulba is directed by J. Lee Thompson and adapted to the screen by Waldo Salt and Karl Tunberg from a story by Nikolai Gogol. It stars Yul Brynner, Tony Curtis, Christine Kaufmann and Perry Lopez. Out of United Artists, it's a DeLuxe/Eastman Color/Panavision production, with the music scored by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Joseph MacDonald.

Loosely based on Gogol's short novel, story tells of a Cossack uprising against the Polish forces who have taken control of the Ukraine. At the centre of the Cossack army is the leader Taras (Brynner) and his two sons, Andrei (Curtis) and Ostap (Lopez). But when Andrei falls in love with a Polish princess called Natalia (Kaufmann), it sets the wheels in motion...

Cossacks vs. Poles on the steppes of Ukraine (actually Argentina)

In the 16th century, Cossacks on the Ukrainian steppe defy their subjugators, the Poles. Yul Brynner plays a hearty colonel while Tony Curtis plays his eldest son, who foolishly falls for a lovely princess in Kiev (Christine Kaufmann).

"Taras Bulba" (1962) is based on the first half of the classic novella by Nikolai Gogol, published in 1835. At heart, its a sword & sandal flick that meshes The Vikings (1958) with Brynners Solomon and Sheba (1959). There are curious stabs at frivolity and amusement that are absent by the second half. The singing & dancing of the mirthful Cossacks seems a little too choreographed, eliciting a sense of unreality to the proceedings,...