Comments on: Robbery,......... Style

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

TrialByMedia — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:17:36 -0800

Robbery American Style. Robbery French Style. Robbery Italian Style. Classic Soviet animation from Soyuzmultfilm.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:27:34 -0800

In capitalist America, the strippers start naked, and get dressed. Who knew?

By: freebird

freebird — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:31:33 -0800

- Untranslatable Italian Folklore - awesome

By: lenny70

lenny70 — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:57:55 -0800

These are awesome. Thanks for posting them.

By: mdonley

mdonley — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 23:15:06 -0800

The dude with the creepy eye in the Parisian cafe is going to haunt my dreams.

By: TrialByMedia

TrialByMedia — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 23:59:54 -0800

Looks like I missed one. Robbery Russian Style.

By: Sangermaine

Sangermaine — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 00:22:15 -0800

Love the music in these.

By: elgilito

elgilito — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:09:44 -0800

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!

By: oaf

oaf — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:12:09 -0800

I never knew the Soviets experimented so heavily with drugs.

By: oaf

oaf — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:28:32 -0800

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.

By: fatllama

fatllama — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:47:08 -0800

Brilliant, thanks.

By: darkripper

darkripper — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 05:45:51 -0800

The fake italian accent it's just awesome.

By: fake

fake — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 05:52:57 -0800

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.

By: oddman

oddman — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:02:43 -0800

Even in soviet parodies the French are damn stylish.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:20:35 -0800

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.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:27:55 -0800

fucking gorgeous stuff, this. thanks!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:55:22 -0800

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.

By: oaf

oaf — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 08:18:53 -0800

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.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 08:35:16 -0800

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).

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:33:20 -0800

metafilter: youtube advertising cow

By: elgilito

elgilito — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:09:35 -0800

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.

By: coolhappysteve

coolhappysteve — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:17:47 -0800

That was really delightful - thanks!

By: maus

maus — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:21:44 -0800

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?

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:40:18 -0800

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.

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:11:31 -0800

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.)

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:51:36 -0800

Exceptional. Just, really exceptional.

By: fake

fake — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:35:27 -0800

Thanks, elgilito!