Hattyúdal

This is a characteristic movie of its age and its country. The message is undoubtedly propagandistic: you can not live outside the beautiful, progressive, communist society of Hungary of the 1960's. If you try, you will loose all of your friends, you will stay alone etc. A kind-hearted police officer even explains this message verbally, and does his best to find jobs for the young tramps... Yeah, right. But the actors are great, especially Antal Páger, in the role of Tamburás, the easy-going, smart, tricky, but lovable old tramp. There are some excellent songs, a lot of funny moments and even some good jokes. In 1963, we Hungarians liked this movie very much: we laughed at the pranks of the vagabonds, we enjoyed the new dance they introduced (the twist...), the song of "Villa Negra" was extremely popular -- and we ignored the political propaganda.