Taras Bulba

Details

Release year: 1962

Storyline

In the 16th-century Ukraine, the Polish overlords and Ukrainian cossacks fight for control of the land but frequent Turkish invasions force them to unite against the common Turkish foe.

Top credits

Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

Did you know

• According to director J. Lee Thompson, in an interview in Yul Brynner: The Man Who Was King (1995), there was a misunderstanding with the hundreds of Argentine gauchos playing horsemen . They were told that horsemen who fell off their horse during an attack scene would be paid extra--but only those who were directed to do so. When the scene was shot, two-thirds of them fell off their horses and expected the extra pay. Upon being told they were not going to be paid extra, they threatened to strike. Yul Brynner then took steak dinners out to their encampment that evening and spent hours entertaining them. Impressed by this, the gauchos returned to work the next day.

• Yul Brynner wanted to capture the essence of Nikolay Gogol's novel in the film. By the time it reached the screen, it was dismissed as just another routine action picture in Cossack clothing--the very thing Brynner had hoped to avoid. According to his son Rock, his father never again invested much, if any, of himself in his remaining screen work.

• Jack Palance (who really was of Ukrainian descent) turned down the role later taken by Yul Brynner.

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Technical specs

Sound mix

70 mm 6-Track, Mono

Aspect ratio

2.39 : 1, 2.20 : 1

Color

Color