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The Marriage of the Bear (Russian: Медвежья свадьба, romanized: Medvezhya svadba) (aka The Bear's Wedding[1]) is a 1925 Soviet silent horror-fantasy drama film directed by Konstantin Eggert and Vladimir Gardin.[2][3] It is based on the play with the same name by Anatoli Lunacharsky, which in turn was based on Prosper Mérimée's novella Lokis (Lithuanian for "bear").

The Marriage of the Bear
Directed by	Vladimir Gardin Konstantin Eggert
Written by	Georgiy Grebner Anatoli Lunacharsky (play) Prosper Mérimée (novel)
Starring	Konstantin Eggert Vera Malinovskaya
Cinematography	Eduard Tisse Pyotr Yermolov
Production company	Mezhrabpomfilm
Release date	1925
Country	Soviet Union
Languages	Silent Russian intertitles

Prosper Mérimée wrote a number of bizarre, macabre stories, of which Lokis is one. He was also the author of La Venus d'Ille which Italian horror director Mario Bava adapted to film in 1978. The Russian silent film with its lycanthropic theme predates Universal's later werewolf films, such as The Werewolf of London (1935) and The Wolf Man (1941). But with prints of this film almost impossible to view (although it is said to still exist in a couple of archives), it's difficult to determine if the "man-into-beast" scenes of the film refers to a literal shapeshifter, or if it's just a psychological condition that affects the main character's mind. Critic Troy Howarth calls it "possibly the first depiction of a man-into-beast scenario (in a horror film)".[4]

The film was remade in 1971 as Lokis by Polish director Janusz Majewski, and again in 1975 as The Beast by Polish auteur Walerian Borowczyk.[5] The film's sets were designed by the art director Vladimir Yegorov.

Plot

When a pregnant Russian countess is frightened by a bear, she later gives birth to a male child who acts in some ways like an animal. As the boys matures, he takes to stalking young women in the forest while wearing the skin of a bear. When he becomes an adult, the boy marries a young girl and appears to be normal. But on their honeymoon, he turns into a bear and murders his wife, drinking her blood. But it's not clear whether the transformation is real, or if the young man just believes he is a bear and is acting like one.

Cast

• Konstantin Eggert
• Vera Malinovskaya as Yulka
• B. Afonin
• Varvara Alyokhina as Old Adelina
• Alexander Geirot
• Aleksandra Kartseva as Adelina Shemet
• Galina Kravchenko
• Olga Lenskaya
• Natalya Rozenel [Wikidata]
• M. Rozenstein
• N. Stal
• Nikolai Vitovtov
• Vladimir Vladislavskiy
• Ye. Volkonskaya
• Yuri Zavadsky as Olgert

References

Bibliography

• Liz-Anne Bawden. The Oxford companion to film. Oxford University Press, 1976.

External links

• The Marriage of the Bear at IMDb

На других языках

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- [en] The Marriage of the Bear

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[ru] Медвежья свадьба

«Медве́жья сва́дьба» — мистическая драма по пьесе Анатолия Луначарского[1], созданной по мотивам новеллы Проспера Мериме «Локис». Премьера состоялась 25 января 1926 года. Один из самых успешных в прокате фильмов своего времени[2].

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