Sadko

Sadko (1953) is a lavish Soviet fantasy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Alexander Ptushko, with Sergei Stolyarov as the bold Novgorodian bard and merchant, Alla Larionova and Nikolai Kryuchkov.

Sadko bets the boyars of Novgorod he can find and bring back the legendary Bird of Happiness. What follows is a journey through foreign courts, underwater kingdoms and the throne room of the Ocean King himself. Ptushko staged every sequence as a set piece: underwater photography, vivid sets built to suggest a dozen different lands, and Rimsky-Korsakov's opera score running through the whole picture.

The film took the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953. A decade later it was re-edited for US audiences as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad — a sign of how far its visual ambition traveled beyond the Soviet mainstream. Stream Sadko online on iFILM.