Song of the Prairie

[MikeBSG]

I recently rented a DVD of films by Jiri Trnka, a Czech master of puppet animation.

One very funny short film was "Song of the Prairie," a parody of "Stagecoach." The villain even looked like John Carradine. In one scene, Mexican bandits run off horses at night from a depot, and it was very much like the scene in which the Mexican workers flee the depot in Ford's film.

All in all, a very funny movie from about 1951. I remember reading that "Stagecoach" played the USSR as a "trophy film" after the Second World War (meaning it was a captured print from foreign sources) called "The Journey Will be Dangerous." Who knew it had a Czech following as well?