The Nutcracker (1973 film)

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, transcribed as Schelkunchik) is a 1973 Soviet/Russian animated film from the Soyuzmultfilm studio directed by Boris Stepantsev and based partly on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, but more closely on E.T.A. Hoffmann's novelette The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the story which inspired the ballet.

Ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who himself starred in his own classic TV edition of The Nutcracker in 1977, included the 1973 animated film as part of his PBS series Stories from my Childhood, of which he was the executive producer. For the U.S. telecast, narration spoken first by Hans Conried and later by Shirley MacLaine was added as well as a version without any narration. There is no dialogue in the original film, except for a few "chipmunk"-like squeals when the mice vanish and the squeals and laughter of the children in the party sequence. The music is taken from several of Tchaikovsky's compositions aside from The Nutcracker, including The Russian Dance, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.