Robbery,......... Style

July 14, 2007 10:17 PM

Robbery American Style. Robbery French Style. Robbery Italian Style. Classic Soviet animation from Soyuzmultfilm.
posted by TrialByMedia (26 comments total)

In capitalist America, the strippers start naked, and get dressed. Who knew?
posted by delmoi at 10:27 PM on July 14, 2007

- Untranslatable Italian Folklore -

awesome
posted by freebird at 10:31 PM on July 14, 2007

These are awesome. Thanks for posting them.
posted by lenny70 at 10:57 PM on July 14, 2007

The dude with the creepy eye in the Parisian cafe is going to haunt my dreams.
posted by mdonley at 11:15 PM on July 14, 2007

Looks like I missed one. Robbery Russian Style.
posted by TrialByMedia at 11:59 PM on July 14, 2007

Love the music in these.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:22 AM on July 15, 2007

The French style one is actually an amazing recreation of French gangster movies and Gabin vehicles of the 60s, particularly Le cave se rebiffe, and Mélodie en sous-sol). It has the script (a Boudard/Audiart/Simonin parody), the music, the gimmicks, the twist ending and the perfectly recognisable cast : Gabin (in his usual "old time gangster" role) and Delon of course, with De Funès (the creepy eyed dude, but that was typical De Funès), Fernandel (morphing into Gabin!) and Bardot added for good measure. Great find, thanks!
posted by elgilito at 2:09 AM on July 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

I never knew the Soviets experimented so heavily with drugs.
posted by oaf at 2:12 AM on July 15, 2007

Also, I'm surprised that the по-русский one wasn't censored for criticizing the lack of upkeep a lot of things in the Soviet Union received.
posted by oaf at 2:28 AM on July 15, 2007

Brilliant, thanks.
posted by fatllama at 4:47 AM on July 15, 2007

The fake italian accent it's just awesome.
posted by darkripper at 5:45 AM on July 15, 2007

Elgilito, I'm very interested in the music that they're referencing in the French video. Can you name some artists/composers to check out?

Thanks for this post, these are brilliant.
posted by fake at 5:52 AM on July 15, 2007

Even in soviet parodies the French are damn stylish.
posted by oddman at 6:02 AM on July 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

I love how the American one starts and the James Bond parody vibe. Thanks, these are really neat.

Soyuzmultfilm studio is also responsible for Yuriy Norshteyn's indescribably awesome Tale of Tales, which many consider the best animated film of all time. There's a decent series called Masters of Russian Animation, esp. volumes 2 and 3, that has a variety of this kind of stuff, though I tend to prefer the more 3-dimensional stop-motion shorts, like Ivan Ivanov-Vano's gorgeous Seasons, so YMMV.
posted by mediareport at 6:20 AM on July 15, 2007 [3 favorites]

fucking gorgeous stuff, this.
thanks!
posted by Busithoth at 6:27 AM on July 15, 2007

The French style one is actually an amazing recreation of French gangster movies

Yeah, the others were amusing (well, I actually found the po-amerikanski one tedious, but I'm American, so I would, wouldn't I?), but that one was sheer genius and shows a deep love and understanding of the genre.

Also, I'm surprised that the по-русский one wasn't censored

From the annotation on YouTube:
This episode was censored out to all the Soviet versions of the film and only restored in 1992.
posted by languagehat at 6:55 AM on July 15, 2007

This episode was censored out to all the Soviet versions of the film and only restored in 1992.

That's what I get for watching it at five in the morning. I wonder if the creators were punished, Soviet-style.
posted by oaf at 8:18 AM on July 15, 2007

The French style one is actually an amazing recreation of French gangster movies and Gabin vehicles of the 60s

The Italian one also seems to have been inspired by the Italian heist movie spoof, Big Deal on Madonna Street. Also notice how the women have bigger waists and breasts than the woman in Robbery French Style. It also invokes a lot of staples you find in Italian comedies from the 1940s to the 1960s (dialect comedy, Italians' national pride in their own inefficiency, police corruption, the petty criminal who's a lovable screw-up).
posted by jonp72 at 8:35 AM on July 15, 2007

metafilter: youtube advertising cow
posted by clavdivs at 10:33 AM on July 15, 2007

Fake: I'm very interested in the music that they're referencing in the French video.

I don't know much about music, but the soundtrack of Mélodie en sous-sol (by Michel Magne) seems to be a good example. See also Jimmy Smith's soundtrack for the crime-comedy La métamorphose des cloportes.
posted by elgilito at 11:09 AM on July 15, 2007

That was really delightful - thanks!
posted by coolhappysteve at 12:17 PM on July 15, 2007

Am I the only one who thinks that this visual/musical style and physical fluidity would make a good foundation for a mindblowingly amazing video game?
posted by maus at 2:21 PM on July 15, 2007

Definitely Maus, unfortunately video games have been stuck in a 3D rendering swamp for a while now which seems to make stylized efforts difficult. That may change with DirectX 10 coming out from Microsoft, but I wouldn't count on it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:40 PM on July 15, 2007

YES. These are so stylish!


(and thanks, mediareport for invoking the name Yuriy Norshteyn. One of my Russian friends introduced me to this charming film and now I'm a big fan.)
posted by louche mustachio at 11:11 PM on July 15, 2007

Exceptional.
Just, really exceptional.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:51 AM on July 16, 2007

Thanks, elgilito!
posted by fake at 3:35 PM on July 16, 2007