Commissioned by the USSR State Committee on Television and Radio
Sverdlovsk Film Studio
The Little Sparrow
Based on the story by A.M. Gorky
Once upon a time, there lived a yellow-beaked sparrow named Pudik.
He had not yet tried to fly,
but already he was flapping his little wings and poking his head out of the nest.
He was very impatient to know what the outside world was like
and whether it was good enough for him.
Peeping at the ground, he chirped,
"It's ch-err-ibly dark!"
"What, what?" asked Mother Sparrow.
"Ch-err-ibly dark!"
Then Father Sparrow came home with insects for Pudik and started boasting,
Well, am I the chief or not?
"The chief, the chief!" Mother Sparrow chirped approvingly.
But Pudik just swallowed the insects and thought to himself,
"What're they boasting about? They gave me a leggy worm."
"What a miracle!"
"My child, my child" his mother chirped at him,
"Mind you don't fall out!"
"Why, why?"
"If you fall to the ground,"
"The cat will go - 'Chik'!"
"and gobble you up!"
his father explained, flying off on another hunt.
And so the days went by.
Yet Pudik's wings were in no hurry to grow.
One day a strong wind sprang up.
"Twee-ee-eet! Twee-ee-eet! What's this?"
Pudik wanted to know.
"It's the wind,"
"It might blow on you - chirik!"
"and you could fall to the ground, to the cat!"
"Why are the trees swaying?"
"Let them stop swaying, and the wind will go away."
His mother tried to explain that it wasn't like that,
but he would not believe her.
He had his own answer for everything.
A man walked past the bath-house, swinging his arms.
"The cat must have torn his wings off,"
"Only the bones remain."
"That's a man. None of them have wings!"
"But why?"
"That's how they are."
"All they can do is hop about on two legs, see?"
"What twaddle!"
"Everyone ought to have wings."
"It can't be as fun on the ground as it is in the air!"
"When I'm big and grown up,"
"I'll see to it that everyone can fly!"
"An honor to meet you, an honor!"
"Scram, scram!"
"Fly, Pudik, fly!"
cried the Mama bird as she was chased by the cat
Fear lifted the little sparrow off the ground.
He took one jump, flapped his wings, and there he was on the window ledge.
And after him came Mother.
"Are you alive?"
"Barely alive."
So it came out all right in the end.
Pudik learned how to fly,
And learned he should always listen to his mother,
and everything would be okay.
Screenwriter: I. Alexandrova, Director: A. Karayev, Art director: V. Kurochkina
Cinematographer: N. Gribkov, Composer: A. Nimenskiy, Animators: A. Karayev, V. Petkevich
Artists: O. Minnebaeva, A. Petrov, N. Portnova, Sound engineer: L. Erykalova
Editor: R. Shamrai, Narrator: V. Larionov, Script editor: I. Boguslavskiy
Production director - L. Slepneva
The End.