Мы с Шерлоком Холмсом
Мы с Шерлоком Холмсом (Sherlock Holmes and I) is a Soviet animated film released in 1985, written by and directed by Vladimir Popov (Владимир Попов), starring Vasily Livanov (Василий Ливанов) as the voice of Sherlock Holmes, very wellknown for his performances as Sherlock Holmes on screen in Russia between 1980-1988. The plot is a parody of the Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
The story begins from group of puppies, who ask old Great Dane Tom to tell them something interesting. Tom tells about his adventures with his best old friend Sherlock Holmes. While pursuing a masked robber named Big and his assistant Crocodile, Holmes jumped from a bridge to the river and is presumed dead. Tom vows to finish the investigation. Having deduced the Crocodile's house from clues, Tom demands the address of the hideout of Big. Also Tom offered to Crocodile to take him as butler, if he promise improve. He agreed with crocodile tears on his eyes. "How many times do you have feeding?" asks the Crocodile. Tom demanded Big to give up, but the bandit is not going to give up, and Tom gets in the net. Big is ready to kill the dog, but suddenly a living Holmes emerges from the stolen closed safe. The confrontation ends when Big faints at the sight of jumping frog out of top hat.
In 1985 an audio-tale was released based on the soundtrack to this animated film. The story received comments by author with text by Alexander Pozharov (Александр Пожаров). In 2005, a book for children had been print, based on the script of this film. The scriptwriter's name Vitaly Zlotnikov (Виталий Злотников), is on the book cover, but the story had additions to the original. For example, the cat became lady-cat and received surname and speechless. She teases the dog with sarcastic phrases and name-calling.
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Sherlock Holmes
Cast
Voices
- Sherlock Holmes : Vasily Livanov (Василий Ливанов)
- Great Dane Tom : Andrey Mironov (Андрей Миронов)
- Bandit Big : Lev Durov (Лев Дуров)
- Bandit's assistant Crocodile : Vyacheslav Nevinny (Вячеслав Невинный)
- Puppies : Lyudmila Gnilova (Людмила Гнилова)
- Puppy Crocodile's neighbour : Svetlana Kharlap (Светлана Харлап)
Crew
- Director : Vladimir Popov (Владимир Попов)
- Screenwriter : Vitaly Zlotnikov (Виталий Злотников)
- Music : Evgeny Krylatov (Евгений Крылов).
- Artists : Arkady Sher (Аркадий Шер), Igor Oleynikov (Игорь Олейников)
- Cameraman : Kabul Rasulov (Кабул Расулов)
- Sound engineer : Boris Filchikov (Борис Фильчков)
- Animation artists : Elvira Maslova (Эльвира Маслова), Marina Rogova (Марина Рогова), Natalia Bogomolova (Наталия Богомолова), Vladimir Vyshegorodtsev (Владимир Вышегородцев), Alexander Dorogov (Александр Дорогов), Yuri Kuzyurin(Юрий Кузюрин)
- Film editor : Natalia Stepantseva (Наталия Степанцева)
- Editor : Raisa Frichinskaya (Раиса Фричинская)
- Crew Director : Lyubov Butyrina (Любовь Бутырина)
Review
Review by Oksana Shishkina-Korolenko (20 march 2025)
The story begins from group of puppies, who ask old Great Dane Tom to tell them something interesting. Tom tells about his adventures with his best old friend Sherlock Holmes. While pursuing a masked robber named Big and his assistant Crocodile, Holmes jumped from a bridge to the river and is presumed dead. Tom vows to finish the investigation. Having deduced the Crocodile's house from clues, Tom demands the address of the hideout of Big. Also Tom offered to Crocodile to take him as butler, if he promise improve. He agreed with crocodile tears on his eyes. "How many times do you have feeding?" asks the Crocodile. Tom demanded Big to give up, but the bandit is not going to give up, and Tom gets in the net. Big is ready to kill the dog, but suddenly a living Holmes emerges from the stolen closed safe. The confrontation ends when Big faints at the sight of jumping frog out of top hat.
When the story was told, one of the puppies says: "Oh, how great you made it up, sir!" But Tom's butler (the Crocodile) comes out of the house with telephone and invites Tom to take it. Tom asked, who asks him, and Crocodile reported: "Mr Sherlock Holmes, sir!" The cat, who was sitting on the tree and listening to the story, faints from the tree and runs away. The puppies run after him.
Holmes dressed elegant in black frock coat and top hat. He does not wear coat with pelerine and deerstalker. Holmes speaks with familiar voice by Vasily Livanov. His replicas constructed in a very stylish manner, similar to the replicas of the Soviet TV-serial. For example, Holmes speaks to bandit: "Rough, my friend, very rough! Besides, I'm a pretty good in boxing".
There are many funny moments in the film. For example, when the detective and the dog are chasing criminals, and criminals are crawling past the policeman to avoid being noticed, Holmes and Tom crawl too.
Very long the bandit Big tinkers with the safe, but when he decides to show Holmes his Karate skills, he smashes the safe on two parts with the palm of his hand.
Tom marks a door, there criminal’s assistant lives with a cross, and the cunning Crocodile erases the chalk and draws a cross on another door. As in very old Eastern fairy-tale.
There are many episodes, which shows resourcefulness of film's creators. Sherlock Holmes and his friend dog Tom are standing in ambush in painting frame. Holmes dives into the river and then finds himself inside the safe. Holmes has unusual stick- transformer: stick, stepladder and telescopic bar. Tom knocks on the wrong door and asks the puppy with whom he lives. The puppy answered that with Uncle Francis. When Tom asked about color of his tail, because he follows green tail, the puppy answered: "Ah, sir! This is my sore spot. He doesn't have a tail at all".
The animated film has some references. Throughout the film, the Crocodile and his friend-bandit sing a song to the tune of Russian translation of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Boots". They reinterpreted text of Russian translation by Ada Onoshkovich-Yatsyna (Ада Оношкович-Яцына) under title "Dust". Kipling's refrain "We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa — Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa" was translated as "Day–night–day–night – we are walking through Africa, Day–night–day–night – all through the same Africa". The criminals sing: "Day and night, day and night we are swimming through Africa. Day and night, day and night all through the same Africa. Only dust..." Despite the fact that the bandit sings along with the Crocodile, he tells to him: "Shut up your maw, green mug!" Sherlock Holmes transforms into old woman smoking pipe. This is reference to the Soviet TV-serial "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson". It was one of Holmes "masquerade". The title and opening credits on the background of Big Ben also are the reference to the Soviet TV-serial.
The Crocodile's nickname Zelony (Зелёный, means Green) is also reference to the Soviet TV-serial, where Rina Zelonay (Рина Зелёная) played a role of Mrs Hudson. In the end of animated film the Crocodile becomes Tom’s butler. And he make him feel comfortable like Mrs Hudson for his famous tenants. There is slip-up in this animated film. Sherlock Holmes lost his shoe, but he again in both shoes before he found lost shoe. By the way, when he found his shoe, he began to make correct conclusions about its owner ("The shoe belongs to a tall Englishman who wears a top hat and plays the violin.") until the Tom suggested to him: “And also this Englishman smokes a pipe”. Holmes understood that this is his shoe. This is favorite episode of both all children and adults.
