Old Czech Legends

Old Czech Legends
Directed by	Jiří Trnka
Written by	Screenplay: Jiří Brdecka Jiří Trnka Book: Alois Jirásek
Music by	Václav Trojan
Cinematography	Emanuel Franek Ludvík Hájek
Release date(s)	8 April 1953
Running time	91 minutes
Country	Czechoslovakia
Language	Czech

Old Czech Legends (Czech: Staré pověsti české) is a 1953 Czechoslovak stop motion puppet animation film directed by Jiří Trnka. It was based on the 1894 book Ancient Bohemian Legends by Alois Jirásek.

After the completion of Bajaja in 1950, Trnka was celebrated by the communist regime of Czechoslovakia, and asked to make more films. He created a project to film Don Quijote, but it was rejected. Trnka decided to go back to illustrating children's books, but the government convinced him to make his next film based on a classical Czech book. Trnka initially didn't want to work on the project, but once he started for real, the results were astonishing.

The 91 minute film is a rather ambitious project that Trnka made possible thanks to his legendary mastery of puppets and animation. The complex story is filled with many characters and features complicated scenes both to stage and animate. His use of camera movements, lighting, set design, character design and animation and general storytelling made this a very influential movie in the history of animation.

Voice cast

• Růžena Nasková
• Zdeněk Štěpánek
• Eduard Kohout
• Václav Vydra
• Karel Höger

External links

• Old Czech Legends at the Internet Movie Database
• Jiri Trnka, Walt Disney of the East! - article @ Animation World Network (AWN)
• Jiri Trnka: an artist who turned puppets into film stars
• A frame of the movie