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Ilf and Petrov

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The Golden Calf sounds a lot like a modern update of Dead Souls.  In this case Ostap Bender rides through the Hinterlands in a yellow jalopy in search of an elusive millionaire.  Sounds like a good translation.  As Mark Twain once wrote in The Awful German Language, it is very hard to translate humor.

Ilf and Petrov love the idea of searching out millions, probably best characterized in The 12 Chairs, which Mel Brooks made into a movie back in 1970.  Here's the classic Soviet version directed by Mark Zakharov and featuring Andrei Mironov as Bender, but alas no subtitles.  Well worth the look just the same.

Also great fun is the adventures of Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip.

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